My money and my mouth: now in one convenient location

[RJ Dalton]

Okay, so I totally 100% agree with MovieBob on the Transformers movies. No, I'm not a fanboy; as a child of the 90s, I missed the original series. I only looked up some episodes and the animated movie because I heard there was going to be a live-action version and I wanted to have some idea of what to expect. I thought the series was pretty "meh." It has some excellent ideas, but it didn't present them very well, largely because it didn't try to respect the intelligence of its audience and also because it didn't take itself seriously, but that's kind of how most kids shows are, so I can't fault it *too* much. Still, it had some excellent ideas that I thought could make for an excellent movie in the hands of someone who was going to treat it with some intellectual maturity, kind of like how George Lucas treated the old Flash Gordon stuff when he made Star Wars (before his brain fell out and he thought it would be a good idea to reimagine a hulking badass with a built in inhaler into a winy shit-head who throws tantrums because he misses his mommy). Of course, when I heard that Michael Bay was directing it, I gave up hop of that happening. Now, I'm not going to go off on Michael Bay (much) or the Transformers movies because everybody has done that - well, everyone who I care to listen to, anyway - so I doubt anyone's curious to hear more. Besides, with all that's been said, I kind of have nothing new to add in that area.
So, instead, I'm going to back up my claim that Michael Bay is a hack with less talent than I had when I was in fifth grade by showing you what I'd have done if it had been me in the directors chair.
And here it is:
http://freyad-dryden.deviantart.com/#/d3kw3l5
Sorry, you'll have to go to Deviant Art, because that's where I put up all my writing.
Anyway, I want to point out that this is a rough outline, not a fleshed script. I wrote it in one sitting and haven't reviewed and revised it at all, except to clean out as many typos as I could find, because I'm making a point that I can do better than Bay without trying. If I were to actually make these as movies, I'd work from this outline, but the script would clean up whatever logical errors or inconsistencies that I note as I'm writing. I don't pretend to be a master storyteller who can get everything he writes perfectly on the first sitting, but I do posit that my initial explorations are at least a dozen times better than Michael Bay's finished products.

Oh, and if you want to tell me I have a stick up my ass and should just enjoy the movies because (MovieBob impression) "Dude, shit blows up!" then I will gladly take my stick out of my ass. Feel free to guess where I'll stick it next.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'd suggest that if you spent an hour on writing this in that 'one sitting', you've already tried harder and put more thought into it that Bay did.

I'm not sure how many will go read it all, and how many will mock you, but I think everyone's entitled to their opinion, and I guess that means everyone's entitled to their opinion on your opinion

Personally I appreciate anyone who can write, I'm only capable of short, page length rant pieces, nothing in the way of fiction, it's why I failed English at school, I'm fine with spelling, grammar, etc., (tho I'm sure someone will helpfully pick me apart here to prove me wrong) but I was incapable of writing a page or two of creative fiction, given a theme or starting point.

I still remember using the word miasma in one story at school when I was quiet young and disappointing the teacher by actually being able to back it up with a definition when she tried to call me out on it

 

[neoptolemus]

On the other hand Michael Bay is famous and has lots and lots of money. Do you?

 

[Dragonsoulq]

Fame and money does not equal talent

Paris Hilton for example, Uwe Boll, Pandas

 

[RJ Dalton]

I still remember using the word miasma in one story at school when I was quiet young and disappointing the teacher by actually being able to back it up with a definition when she tried to call me out on it

Yeah, I remember doing that on occasion. Although, I was lucky enough to have teachers who actually encouraged me instead of being upset.

Writing is hard. I've been practicing for something like sixteen years now. I started seriously writing in fifth grade and now I've just graduated from college with a degree in literature and folklore. Even with all that practice, I still only just barely consider myself to be at a level of skill worthy of publication and I freely admit to not belonging anywhere near anyone's list of "Best writers ever." But I do hope to get there someday and I'm going to keep improving until the day I die (or my brain rots out so bad that I can't write anymore, at which point I may go out like Ernest Hemingway).
That's why people like Michael Bay piss me right the fuck off. There are people who deserve to be in his position so much more than he does, but Hollywood won't give them the time of day. And I get even more pissed off at the people who make his movies successes because that only encourages Hollywood to continue giving Bay 200 million dollar budgets to be thrown away on barely coherent strings of dick jokes while they ignore the people with real talent.

On the other hand Michael Bay is famous and has lots and lots of money. Do you?

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean.
Are you trying to make that as a serious argument against me? In that case, I would point out that this argument is an association bias, a logical fallacy wherein two unrelated things are equated to the same thing.
Or are you just trying to get my goat by saying something that, given the context of my previous post, is very likely to really piss me off? In that case, I appreciate your attempt at "I'm a jerk" humor (also known as "trolling"), a thing for which I freely admit to stooping to on occasion, but I'm not falling for it. Better luck next time.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

In response to the above, it'd be a much finer world all around if the people holding the money for movies just went' no, you're not getting $100 million to make this movie, and Bruce Willis, you're not getting $20 million for showing up, either. We're gonna bring in some lesser known people who've proved their talents, and sign em up to a deal so when this one does well, we'll rake it in on the next ones. '

I'm all for quality, but the diminishing returns are crazy.

Really how much difference is there between a $500,000 a movie actor and a $10 million one. Same goes for Michael Bay and any other director. Hell, didn't Peter Jackson get the Lord of the Rings gig based on his early low budget horror movies? Maybe he showed what he could do with $30,000 and they figured he's the man to offer millions to

It's all about hype, and if we could break that, we'd have a more lively and exciting movie and tv and music industry, and less duds with a famous name attached.

 

[neoptolemus]

On the other hand Michael Bay is famous and has lots and lots of money. Do you?

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean.
Are you trying to make that as a serious argument against me? In that case, I would point out that this argument is an association bias, a logical fallacy wherein two unrelated things are equated to the same thing.
Or are you just trying to get my goat by saying something that, given the context of my previous post, is very likely to really piss me off? In that case, I appreciate your attempt at "I'm a jerk" humor (also known as "trolling"), a thing for which I freely admit to stooping to on occasion, but I'm not falling for it. Better luck next time.

Yeah, the latter.

 

[neoptolemus]

Oops, double post. Not sure how to delete this. :S

 

[IzisviAziria]

Fame and money does not equal talent

Paris Hilton for example, Uwe Boll, Pandas

While fame and money does not equal talent, fame and money does equal the ability to produce something in hollywood. Talent does not grant that.

 

[unicron44]

Now I haven't read much but when you said

Okay, so I totally 100% agree with MovieBob on the Transformers movies. No, I'm not a fanboy; as a child of the 90s, I missed the original series. I only looked up some episodes and the animated movie because I heard there was going to be a live-action version and I wanted to have some idea of what to expect. I thought the series was pretty "meh." It has some excellent ideas, but it didn't present them very well, largely because it didn't try to respect the intelligence of its audience and also because it didn't take itself seriously, but that's kind of how most kids shows are, so I can't fault it *too* much. Still, it had some excellent ideas that I thought could make for an excellent movie in the hands of someone who was going to treat it with some intellectual maturity, kind of like how George Lucas treated the old Flash Gordon stuff when he made Star Wars (before his brain fell out and he thought it would be a good idea to reimagine a hulking badass with a built in inhaler into a winy shit-head who throws tantrums because he misses his mommy). Of course, when I heard that Michael Bay was directing it, I gave up hop of that happening. Now, I'm not going to go off on Michael Bay (much) or the Transformers movies because everybody has done that - well, everyone who I care to listen to, anyway - so I doubt anyone's curious to hear more. Besides, with all that's been said, I kind of have nothing new to add in that area.
So, instead, I'm going to back up my claim that Michael Bay is a hack with less talent than I had when I was in fifth grade by showing you what I'd have done if it had been me in the directors chair.
And here it is:
http://freyad-dryden.deviantart.com/#/d3kw3l5
Sorry, you'll have to go to Deviant Art, because that's where I put up all my writing.
Anyway, I want to point out that this is a rough outline, not a fleshed script. I wrote it in one sitting and haven't reviewed and revised it at all, except to clean out as many typos as I could find, because I'm making a point that I can do better than Bay without trying. If I were to actually make these as movies, I'd work from this outline, but the script would clean up whatever logical errors or inconsistencies that I note as I'm writing. I don't pretend to be a master storyteller who can get everything he writes perfectly on the first sitting, but I do posit that my initial explorations are at least a dozen times better than Michael Bay's finished products.

Oh, and if you want to tell me I have a stick up my ass and should just enjoy the movies because (MovieBob impression) "Dude, shit blows up!" then I will gladly take my stick out of my ass. Feel free to guess where I'll stick it next.

Now I haven't read much but when you mentioned Unicron you have my seal of approval. Now I will read the whole thing and give you my complete thoughts.

 

[putowtin]

On the other hand Michael Bay is famous and has lots and lots of money. Do you?

that's not the greatest argument ever... a bank robbers famousr and has lots and lots of money until he gets caught, maybe this is just an example of that, Micheal "I need another explosion" Bay has finally been caught?

 

[SenseOfTumour]

On the other hand Michael Bay is famous and has lots and lots of money. Do you?

that's not the greatest argument ever... a bank robbers famousr and has lots and lots of money until he gets caught, maybe this is just an example of that, Micheal "I need another explosion" Bay has finally been caught?

Of course, bank robbers actually put some thought and planning into their work and have to make some real effort to get handed bags of cash.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Yeah, the latter.

Ah. Good try, but it's hard to fool a professional troll.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Now I haven't read much but when you mentioned Unicron you have my seal of approval. Now I will read the whole thing and give you my complete thoughts.

Yeah, like I said, even though I thought the show was pretty "meh," Unircon was awesome. They came close to getting his presentation in the movie perfectly. The opening scene where he eats a planet left me with only two complaints and they're very minor, one of them so minor that most people probably wouldn't notice it.
The first was that I really didn't like the cartoony chomping sound effects they added to his internal workings. They just made for a goofy moment that was out of place. The second I only noticed on a couple of repeat viewings. The line "Look! It's Unicron!" I think to myself, "wait, if they know who Unicron is, why didn't they see him coming?" I mean, I know there's some kind of explanation that he has a cloaking device that makes machines unable to detect him, but surely if you know about him, you'd notice the effects of his movements, like all communications with other planets and colonies suddenly being cut off. Personally, I would have had him say "What is that?" mirroring the audience's reaction to him and then not reveal his name until he encounters Megatron in space. But those are extremely minor things to complain about.
Unicron was just awesome. No buts about it.

 

[RJ Dalton]

While fame and money does not equal talent, fame and money does equal the ability to produce something in Hollywood. Talent does not grant that.

Exactly. That's my biggest complaint against the studio system. A loosely relevant fact, that was Orson Welles biggest problem with the studio system, too (Orson Welles voiced Unicron, so it *is* loosely relevant).