So we’re all on the same page about this, then? Good:
Director Michael Bay has labeled as "crap" his 2009 movie "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," blaming its shortcomings on the Hollywood writers' strike. In an interview with Britain's Empire magazine, Bay admits that they "made some mistakes" while filming the critically panned sequel.
"The real fault with (Transformers 2) is that it ran into a mystical world," he explains. "When I look back at it, that was crap. The writers' strike was coming hard and fast. It was just terrible to do a movie where you've got to have a story in three weeks."
He adds, "I was prepping a movie for months where I only had 14 pages of some idea of what the movie was. It's a BS way to make a movie, do you know what I'm saying?"
Oh, absolutely. I’m just curious how you prep for a movie when you don’t know what it’s going to be about. If you’re Marlon Brando you can just show up and be assured you can mumble something off the cue cards, and it’ll be brilliant, but when you’re the actual director, a few hints about things like “story” and “location” would be crucial to figuring out what comes next. I have the suspicion that 12 of the 14 pages consisted of lines like “there is a fight between robots” and “Shia and Megan Fox are running from something.”
The third might be better, but remember, we’re still talking about a movie that has jive-talking robots transform turn into cars and are called Transformers, and fight deceptive creatures who are called Decepticons. Oh, and those robots made out of construction vehicles? Constructicons. I’m not sure you need a script. Just put a case of energy drinks and a case of Four Loko in a room with ten computer animators, lock the door, and come back in a month. It couldn’t be any worse.
(Empire's site is here; can't find the interview, but there's plenty on the site to keep you otherwise occupied.)
