What do I mean when I say, "Soul?" I mean I want to see something that affects me, something that makes me feel something. Here is an example of something that I think has heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Dear Director; Michael Bay and screenwriters; Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Ehren Kruger
There were so many things that I hated about Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. It has such promise. I mean, the huge aliens TRANSFORM from one cool thing to another cool thing! What cooler premise could you ask for in an action movie? However, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Ehren Kruger (screenwriters, whom I will refer to hereafter as OKK, even though I wish their initials spelled LESS THAN A TRACE AMOUNT OF TALENT) you wrote an insulting, tedious movie.
First of all, the comic relief came in the form of fast talking, hillbilly, crude twin autobots. As soon as I saw these twins, I thought, "Oh no. Not Jar Jar Binks again!" But they were worse. They were loud, obnoxious, and even worse, they were meant to be funny and never once were. Their jokes came from cheap sexual refrences and insulting each other. It was just tiresome OKK. There was not a single bit of smart humor in the entire movie, and, as previous mentioned, I felt insulted as an audience member.
The other comic relief in the film came from strategically timed swear words and dogs or mini-decepticons humping things. Always a fresh and witty way of making the audience laugh. You three should be ashamed of yourselves. Were you making a movie solely for sixth graders?
As a 26 year old, I imagine I am starting to sound elderly when I mention the length of the cuts. I think was the average cut length was .05 seconds or so. The shot never stood still for one goddamn second! It was always spinning or panning, zooming in or out, I just about had a seizure. When there is no substance to the non-action part of the film, quick shots don't make me care any more about the characters. When Shia is about to leave for college and is on the cusp of saying "I love you," to Megan (which we, as an audience, don't care about), the camera zooms around them in circles so fast I assume it wasn't manned by human hands. I would have liked some still shots and slower shots to see the characters transform. The camera was always panning to the side, with explosions blurring the screen as the transformer clicked through a thousand changes
And the love story? OKK obviously were like, "Hmmm...we have to have at least five minutes of the film be some sort of plot, lets have boy and girl argue about who has to say the "L" word first." And then, at the end, when one of them finally says it, it was super contrived and stupid.
I guess the main problem with the movie was that I didn't care about what happened. It was tedious. You can't make people care, Michael Bay, but making it louder and longer. It had no soul!
Jon told me that I was being too critical of the writing, that if I had seen the original Transformers cartoon I would have thought the screenplay was Shakespeare. But I am not satisfied with that. Moviegoers expect a lot out of their films (Norbet aside), and with the advent of people who have been raised making and writing films at home, directing and filming movies on the their computers since infancy, people are only going to expect more.
So, Michael Bay, OKK, my only advice is to improve and realize that CGI is not going to make a good movie.
First of all, the comic relief came in the form of fast talking, hillbilly, crude twin autobots. As soon as I saw these twins, I thought, "Oh no. Not Jar Jar Binks again!" But they were worse. They were loud, obnoxious, and even worse, they were meant to be funny and never once were. Their jokes came from cheap sexual refrences and insulting each other. It was just tiresome OKK. There was not a single bit of smart humor in the entire movie, and, as previous mentioned, I felt insulted as an audience member.
The other comic relief in the film came from strategically timed swear words and dogs or mini-decepticons humping things. Always a fresh and witty way of making the audience laugh. You three should be ashamed of yourselves. Were you making a movie solely for sixth graders?
As a 26 year old, I imagine I am starting to sound elderly when I mention the length of the cuts. I think was the average cut length was .05 seconds or so. The shot never stood still for one goddamn second! It was always spinning or panning, zooming in or out, I just about had a seizure. When there is no substance to the non-action part of the film, quick shots don't make me care any more about the characters. When Shia is about to leave for college and is on the cusp of saying "I love you," to Megan (which we, as an audience, don't care about), the camera zooms around them in circles so fast I assume it wasn't manned by human hands. I would have liked some still shots and slower shots to see the characters transform. The camera was always panning to the side, with explosions blurring the screen as the transformer clicked through a thousand changes
And the love story? OKK obviously were like, "Hmmm...we have to have at least five minutes of the film be some sort of plot, lets have boy and girl argue about who has to say the "L" word first." And then, at the end, when one of them finally says it, it was super contrived and stupid.
I guess the main problem with the movie was that I didn't care about what happened. It was tedious. You can't make people care, Michael Bay, but making it louder and longer. It had no soul!
Jon told me that I was being too critical of the writing, that if I had seen the original Transformers cartoon I would have thought the screenplay was Shakespeare. But I am not satisfied with that. Moviegoers expect a lot out of their films (Norbet aside), and with the advent of people who have been raised making and writing films at home, directing and filming movies on the their computers since infancy, people are only going to expect more.
So, Michael Bay, OKK, my only advice is to improve and realize that CGI is not going to make a good movie.
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