There is no hiding the fact that Transformers exist solely to sell toys, but the reason it's survived for so long and well loved by hard core fans like myself is the depth of work gone into it. Look at how well written Beast Wars and Animated was. A good group of writers can really access the potential Transformers has. Aliens, wars that have lasted millions of years, sacrifices, struggles, morality, the list is endless.
One of the more interesting points had always been, however stereotyped, everyone of the transformers, Autobots and Decepticons, had their own characters. The cowardly Starscream, the heroic Optimus, the overconfident Powerglide, the arrogant Skylynx, eminently logical Shockwave, monotone Soundwave, the list goes on. The point of that is everyone has their own favorites, every transformer looks and behaves differently.
The reason I mentioned those two important points is that is what people like about Transformers. Yes there's the whole giant robots beating the crap out of each other, but under that is the diversity and scale of this war.
On paper Bay should be the perfect person for this. His utter lack of subtly, over reliance on clichéd characters and love of really big explosions is exactly what is needed. And that's why these films haven't worked. Look at Kenneth Branagh as the director of Thor. Would you have expected that to work as well as it did? How about Simon Pegg's scene stealing performance as Scotty, the best thing about that movie, never would have called it. Peter Jackson's biggest film before LOTR was the Frighteners and Bad Taste. Breaking expectations like this has proven to be a good idea. It shows how someone can look deeper and produce something others wouldn't necessarily see.
This is why Bay is precisely the wrong person for these films, he churns this sort of film out in his sleep. It's like hiring Roland Emmerich to do another disaster movie or Shyamalan to do an episode of the twilight zone. There's nothing new they're going to bring to the table, just churn out the same old crap in a different wrapper.
Having this guy do the third one is rubbing salt on an old wound. What's worse is, reading rumours and spoilers show that he hasn't learnt anything. Even when he knows the second film failed on every level he misses why. Sure the Twins were bad, but so were the parents, and it was only after massive fan backlash that he backtracked on the whole Leo Spitz character and canned him.
Still there is one thing that really sets off alarm bells, the romantic interest. Megan Fox's Mikaela Banes was horrendous. She can't act for spit, the character was ignorant to the point of idiocy and was there simply as eye candy for horny teenagers. There was absolutely zero chemistry between her and Sam and just felt like a love interest shoe horned in for the sake of it. No secret there, but Fox has gone.
Leaving us with Carly, played by, god help us, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. I did not think it was possible to cast someone worse than Fox, all we've seen is the trailer and it hurts. Physically painful. All we see is her in expensive and revealing dresses that aren't even close to practical.
She is going to destroy this film. and after everything we know that really worries me.
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