Is Michael Bay actually a bad director?

Chloe Nguyen said:Ugh, I don't think he's quite that terrible.

No one is ever going to hand Uwe Boll over $100 million to make a movie, I suspect. However, studios will hand that kind of money to Michael Bay without even blinking. Uwe Boll has been making his own little features for ages now; they usually cost about twenty million apiece, and they almost never recoup their costs. It seems to me that Uwe Boll simply lacks any semblance of actual talent.

Now, Michael Bay possesses a very specific type of talent, if you could call it that. It's a knack for those silly, high-octane action flicks. Boll’s movies aren't even that—they're just plain unwatchable. I believe Jerry Bruckheimer recognized that particular Michael Bay talent, handed him $20 million to direct Bad Boys, and walked away with a mountain of cash. For every subsequent project, his budget grew, and so did his profits.

I would argue that while Michael Bay isn't an artist in any traditional sense, he is certainly a highly skilled craftsman.

Yeah, I suppose that's true, but if you're looking for something deeper than a movie you forget the second you leave the theater, he isn't really impressive to me. It might be okay or even fun once or twice—I mean, I find Armageddon pretty entertaining myself. But once someone gets unlimited money and attention for making silly movies (which he did with Transformers)—it becomes an absolute force of nature.

I honestly wonder how anyone could think Transformers is actually cool or fun. To be honest, I'm not even sure how people can call them movies at all.

David Price5 said:Directors rarely change their ways. People tend to stick to their specific genre and style. It's true that many talented filmmakers started with tiny budgets before moving up to the big leagues, but they just don't go back. I highly doubt Samuel L. Jackson will start making movies on a $1–$2 million budget again..

I could bet that Bay would find it much easier to secure $200 million from producers by simply promising a movie full of robots and explosions than finding $10 million for a small drama. To be honest, they might even turn him down for the smaller stuff..

Look, Bay's mostly doing those 15-20 million dollar flicks right now, mainly just producing, but still... Even back when we were talking about Tony Scott, he was a total Jerry Bruckheimer's protégé who was used to massive budgets, yet he eventually pivoted to shoot "True Romance" for basically peanuts—he kind of bounces between commercial stuff and indie projects (both directing and producing), which is something Bay hasn't quite mastered yet, though he's slowly drifting into that territory. I think I read somewhere that he’s actually willing to walk away from Transformers 3 because he's just totally fed up with it all. Now, Jackson pulled off a miracle with The Lord of the Rings—hats off to him—but "King Kong" already showed signs of having much bigger ambitions than actual substance. Then you've got Sam Raimi, who jumped from trash horror straight to Spider-Man, and squeezed in "The Gift" and Simple Plan in between... so yeah, transitions happen, but it's a hell of a lot harder when you built your reputation on relatively hollow blockbusters and then try to pivot to making something... "quality." Even Lynch (since I'm bringing him up) got burned once by high production values and moved toward more personal films after he already had the name and the critical acclaim. Who knows how the story would've ended if "Dean" had actually become a hit along the lines of Star Wars...

briskhound2 said:Look, Bay's mostly doing those 15-20 million dollar flicks right now, mainly just producing, but still... Even back when we were talking about Tony Scott, he was a total Jerry Bruckheimer's protégé who was used to massive budgets, yet he eventually pivoted to shoot "True Romance" for basically peanuts—he kind of bounces between commercial stuff and indie projects (both directing and producing), which is something Bay hasn't quite mastered yet, though he's slowly drifting into that territory. I think I read somewhere that he’s actually willing to walk away from Transformers 3 because he's just totally fed up with it all. Now, Jackson pulled off a miracle with The Lord of the Rings—hats off to him—but "King Kong" already showed signs of having much bigger ambitions than actual substance. Then you've got Sam Raimi, who jumped from trash horror straight to Spider-Man, and squeezed in "The Gift" and Simple Plan in between... so yeah, transitions happen, but it's a hell of a lot harder when you built your reputation on relatively hollow blockbusters and then try to pivot to making something... "quality." Even Lynch (since I'm bringing him up) got burned once by high production values and moved toward more personal films after he already had the name and the critical acclaim. Who knows how the story would've ended if "Dean" had actually become a hit along the lines of Star Wars...

Honestly, anyone can be a producer these days. Half the actors in Hollywood have their own production companies. We just have to accept that most directors make movies they actually enjoy, in their own style. For Bay, this project is likely just as significant as Match Point was for Woody Allen. He doesn't just churn out movies for no reason. He lands one blockbuster every two years. Is that really considered too many? :-)

I plan to put together an analysis one day to see exactly how many genuine blockbusters are produced annually...

David Price5 said:Honestly, anyone can be a producer these days. Half the actors in Hollywood have their own production companies. We just have to accept that most directors make movies they actually enjoy, in their own style. For Bay, this project is likely just as significant as Match Point was for Woody Allen. He doesn't just churn out movies for no reason. He lands one blockbuster every two years. Is that really considered too many? :-)

I plan to put together an analysis one day to see exactly how many genuine blockbusters are produced annually...

Honestly, if you see Bay's name on the credits, you already know exactly what decade we're living in...🤣

Jessica Gonzalez said:Yeah, I suppose that's true, but if you're looking for something deeper than a movie you forget the second you leave the theater, he isn't really impressive to me. It might be okay or even fun once or twice—I mean, I find Armageddon pretty entertaining myself. But once someone gets unlimited money and attention for making silly movies (which he did with Transformers)—it becomes an absolute force of nature.

I honestly wonder how anyone could think Transformers is actually cool or fun. To be honest, I'm not even sure how people can call them movies at all.

Oh boy, here we go again—another pseudo-intellectual acting like they have the right to look down on everything that doesn't fit their specific taste..

Everyone needs to take a breath and get real.. some people just want to hit the theater, grab a massive soda and a bucket of popcorn, turn their brains off for a couple of hours, and then go home and sleep...

+ I’m actually a little afraid to ask what you personally consider a "fun" movie..
I haven't seen Transformers 2 yet, but seeing certain people act like judges over what counts as a real movie, or what qualifies as "cool," gives me a feeling similar to being stuck in a rigid, stuffy classroom...

John Cooper31 said:Oh boy, here we go again—another pseudo-intellectual acting like they have the right to look down on everything that doesn't fit their specific taste..

Everyone needs to take a breath and get real.. some people just want to hit the theater, grab a massive soda and a bucket of popcorn, turn their brains off for a couple of hours, and then go home and sleep...

+ I’m actually a little afraid to ask what you personally consider a "fun" movie..
I haven't seen Transformers 2 yet, but seeing certain people act like judges over what counts as a real movie, or what qualifies as "cool," gives me a feeling similar to being stuck in a rigid, stuffy classroom...

You might act like you have a "pseudo-brain," but Jesus loves you anyway.

briskhound2 said:Look, Bay has his strengths, sure, but I wouldn't quite label him just a "craftsman"... When he's handling independent projects—which, so far, has mostly been in a producer role—he shows a real knack for turning out stuff that actually holds up quality-wise (like that remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre)... And while his movies are definitely visual spectacles, he always tries to sneak a bit of his own DNA into those big, flashy frames. The first thing that jumps out at me is his use of the "rotating shot"—he can take a totally static scene and inject some actual life into it... Sadly, though, his creative spark still seems stuck on the surface level, purely visual. Maybe if he stepped away from the massive producers and those bloated Hollywood budgets for a bit...

Yeah... who knows... maybe things would change then. He started out with a relatively small budget for Bad Boys—around $23 mil—crushed it at the box office, and once you're on that level, they basically let you off the leash. As his films kept raking in more cash, his budgets just kept ballooning... which led to his movies getting progressively worse (though I wouldn't put The Rock or Armageddon in that camp). They started paying less attention to the story and more to the style... experimenting more and more with camera work and effects with every new release... but honestly, IMO, he always manages to deliver at least some entertainment (depending on what you're into). Take Transformers 2, for example... watched them the other day... man, that movie has less brainpower than Terminator Salvation and Wolverine combined, and even those aren't exactly geniuses. There's so much stupidity, continuity errors, and cheesy sentimentality in there, and you could summarize the plot in three short sentences (Sam finds a piece of the AllSpark, the evil Transformers find Sam, and Sam runs from the Transformers while the good ones protect him)... but personally, those 150 minutes flew by and I actually had a good laugh.

Anthony Smith3 said:Yeah... who knows... maybe things would change then. He started out with a relatively small budget for Bad Boys—around $23 mil—crushed it at the box office, and once you're on that level, they basically let you off the leash. As his films kept raking in more cash, his budgets just kept ballooning... which led to his movies getting progressively worse (though I wouldn't put The Rock or Armageddon in that camp). They started paying less attention to the story and more to the style... experimenting more and more with camera work and effects with every new release... but honestly, IMO, he always manages to deliver at least some entertainment (depending on what you're into). Take Transformers 2, for example... watched them the other day... man, that movie has less brainpower than Terminator Salvation and Wolverine combined, and even those aren't exactly geniuses. There's so much stupidity, continuity errors, and cheesy sentimentality in there, and you could summarize the plot in three short sentences (Sam finds a piece of the AllSpark, the evil Transformers find Sam, and Sam runs from the Transformers while the good ones protect him)... but personally, those 150 minutes flew by and I actually had a good laugh.

Look, when a movie costs 200 million dollars, the final product really needs to be top-tier in every single department. I think it's pretty obvious that these massive blockbusters end up hurting other film projects, and it's clear that the advertising for these movies takes up all the space meant for everything else, making these kinds of mindless spectacles the default choice for theaters. I'm 26, so I'm still pretty young and I absolutely love action movies, but I guess my brain still works enough to want something more than just 150 minutes of endless noise and explosions. If that's all I wanted, I probably would've just spent a few hundred bucks on fireworks and set up my own mindless spectacle in the backyard. I just can't get behind an industry where Michael Bay is the main attraction.

Jessica Gonzalez said:Look, when a movie costs 200 million dollars, the final product really needs to be top-tier in every single department. I think it's pretty obvious that these massive blockbusters end up hurting other film projects, and it's clear that the advertising for these movies takes up all the space meant for everything else, making these kinds of mindless spectacles the default choice for theaters. I'm 26, so I'm still pretty young and I absolutely love action movies, but I guess my brain still works enough to want something more than just 150 minutes of endless noise and explosions. If that's all I wanted, I probably would've just spent a few hundred bucks on fireworks and set up my own mindless spectacle in the backyard. I just can't get behind an industry where Michael Bay is the main attraction.

Look, we all end up dead eventually... everything else in life is just subject to being manipulated or screwed over one way or another, good or bad. And even if that sounds illogical, we've been proven wrong a dozen times over the last few years. Just look at Spider-Man 3, The Incredible Hulk, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3, The Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions, the new Star Wars trilogy, and a whole list of others I won't bother naming. They're all massive summer blockbusters—some even cost more than Transformers—but they sure as hell didn't work perfectly.
Besides, why should I care if something else suffers because of this? It’s not like I pulled $200 million out of my own pocket, so frankly, I don't give a damn. Plus, nobody can honestly guarantee that whatever else they make would be any better than this. We all know why Hollywood cuts those massive checks; they aren't about to stop churning out ultra-expensive summer blockbusters when they're clearly printing money. If producers thought putting $200 million into a different project was a smarter move, they'd probably do it. But looking at the box office numbers after just five days, it's obvious they made a solid investment since they've already recouped their costs. Whether you want to be part of the crowd that handed them that cash or how you choose to spend your afternoons is entirely up to you—clearly, we both made the same choice to see the movie, even if we have different takes on it. You're whining about it... me? I couldn't care less. Life goes on.
Same here... since the movie did okay—which counts as a win—a third one is a total lock in two or three years. But from what I've heard, Bay won't even be directing it; they'll just hire some other guy to keep the gears turning. At the end of the day, Bay is just a cog in the machine, not the main attraction. The real stars are the Transformers, and people will show up to see them in a few years regardless of who's behind the camera.🤷

At the end of the day... I can only say I agree with one comment I stumbled upon regarding Transformers 2 recently, which basically goes like this...

The plot is total trash, and honestly, the acting and dialogue are just as bad. Transformers 2 is basically just two and a half hours of loud CGI and explosions—nothing more. If you're down for that, go for it, because there’s zero substance otherwise.

Michael Bay kills it with action, but for the love of God... someone just give him a decent script!

And why does this idea keep dragging on—that Michael Bay just isn't "given" a decent script? Who exactly is "withholding" it from him? Does he even actually want a good script in the first place?

northerncrane4 said:And why does this idea keep dragging on—that Michael Bay just isn't "given" a decent script? Who exactly is "withholding" it from him? Does he even actually want a good script in the first place?

I mean, why bother wasting resources on a screenplay when you could just pour all that money into massive explosions instead?

As an aside, here is what I imagine a perfect Bay script looks like:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/transfor...omment-page-4/

northerncrane4 said:And why does this idea keep dragging on—that Michael Bay just isn't "given" a decent script? Who exactly is "withholding" it from him? Does he even actually want a good script in the first place?

Even if he did, I feel like asking for one would be seen as pure entitlement. It’s almost like, "Hey, we gave you this massive budget, and now you have the nerve to ask for actual substance too?" 😁

northerncrane4 said:And why does this idea keep dragging on—that Michael Bay just isn't "given" a decent script? Who exactly is "withholding" it from him? Does he even actually want a good script in the first place?

And why wouldn't they?! Look, the foundation of any movie—whether it's a massive blockbuster or some indie drama—is the story. It should be the starting point, though clearly, people don't prioritize it until they're already on set. At the end of the day, Bay isn't the one writing these things; he just takes the offers that land on his desk, which are almost always just big-budget spectacles. I'd ask if you think Transformers 2 had a good script, but let's be real, you probably haven't seen it, so why bother? My take: absolutely not. And I'm not just talking about the plot; the characters, the development, the actual dialogue... it’s all basically zero.
The real question is whether the producers behind Transformers 2 actually give a damn about the writing. Clearly not. Because Bay himself has had access to scripts that actually make sense and have substance—I'm talking about his first three films.

Even when we’re talking about those $200 million or so budgets where everything is supposed to be polished like a Hollywood blockbuster... ninety percent of that cash just vanishes into special effects, so every single movie ends up being flawless on that front. It's basically ordered and delivered. Apparently, James Cameron burned through $250 million on Titanic, and back then, neither Leonardo DiCaprio nor Kate Winslet were the kind of A-list elites pulling in $20 million per gig, so these massive spectacles suddenly discovered how to find hot water—they started hiring practically unknown people just to keep the overhead from spiraling. Transformers doesn't really have big stars either because all that money went straight into the VFX, which, let's be honest, are spectacular.

As for Bay and his smaller budget days, he did a brilliant job with the first Bad Boys since neither Will Smith nor Martin Lawrence were top-tier names at the time—and the movie itself, in terms of "spectacle," holds its own against something like Smart Weapon 4, which blew $150 million on and barely broke even... so the guy clearly hasn't lost his touch, he just hasn't stuck to that specific tone. And blaming a director for making bad movies just because his producers handed him $200 million... I mean 🙄 Transformers was built specifically for the American market; what he makes in the US isn't even enough to cover the catering for the crew, though looking at the posts, there are some people out there who seem to think Bay makes movies for them, or like he's doing them a favor by putting on a show.

Let’s shake things up here since the new Transformers are hitting theaters soon. Has anyone actually changed their mind about Michael Bay? Is he a hack in your eyes, or is he one of the best at what he does—directing those massive, high-budget spectacles designed purely to rake in cash while you leave your brain at the door?

Clearly one of the best in the business when it comes to picking movies.

Angela Ramos87 said:Clearly one of the best in the business when it comes to picking movies.

If the goal is just making cheap popcorn flicks, he totally nailed it.

Lisa Ross65 said:Let’s shake things up here since the new Transformers are hitting theaters soon. Has anyone actually changed their mind about Michael Bay? Is he a hack in your eyes, or is he one of the best at what he does—directing those massive, high-budget spectacles designed purely to rake in cash while you leave your brain at the door?

Yeah.

It isn't exactly a masterpiece, I suppose, but it certainly holds more merit than some of those vastly overrated directors out there.

velvetdrifter86 said:If the goal is just making cheap popcorn flicks, he totally nailed it.

Big deal. It clearly wasn't cheap...