Trailer Tuesdays: Transformers: Age of Extinction

Well, Michael Bay is still the director, so this movie will probably suck.

I really hate this entire Transformers universe. I’d rather a reboot than a continuation of a series that has been nothing but misogynistic and racist thus far.

I will admit that I enjoyed the first Transformers movie to an extent, despite how terrible it was. It was a guilty pleasure, but even then, it’s not something that I would go out of my way to see again. The second and third movies were no better. In many ways, they were much worse. I also can’t say that I’ve ever been a big fan of Shia LaBeouf. He’s a bit of an asshole, and that definitely always showed through with his character.

Thankfully, this movie will not star him. At all. And not including LaBeouf can only count in the movie’s favor.

Unfortunately, this is still a Michael Bay film, so I have no doubt that our one token female character will end up being more of a sexual prop than a person and that any people of color will be offensive stereotypes.

On top of all that, do we really need another Transformers film? Considering the quality of the last three movies, I would say we don’t. Age of Extinction takes place four years after Dark of the Moon, and considering how terrible DotM was, I have a feeling that Extinction can only improve upon it. That said, Michael Bay has always, and probably will continue to invent new ways, to piss me off. I understand that as much as we want movies to start catering more to a female audience, Transformers is a franchise that will always cater to a male audience. I’m actually okay with that. There is, however, a difference between catering to a white heterosexual male audience and telling everyone else to go fuck off, and it’s my experience that Michael Bay films do the latter.

On a more positive note, Extinction has both dinobots and a dragonbot, and those are quite possibly the only reasons I am going to subject myself to this movie. All in all, the entire plot just looks like it’ll be boring and probably overdone, just like the previous movies. Once again, we have a white, heterosexual male character who is down on his luck, but he manages to find a Transformer and befriend him. Oh, and the world is in danger. Thus far, the only real distinction between this film and the previous films that I can spot is that our main female character is his daughter and not his love interest. While that gives me hope that she won’t be regulated into a stereotyped role, I refuse to give Michael Bay the benefit of the doubt.

Regardless of whether or not you liked the first three films, they were way too long, especially Dark of the Moon. The length was only made worse by the fact that none of them had a plot more engaging than “good robots vs. bad robots”, and this movie looks no different. While that is essentially the core of the Transformers franchise, it needs more going on to justify a three-hour movie. And since we know Michael Bay’s movies tend to feature a generic white male, with an objectified female and offensive stereotypes, it’s not as though we’re going to end up finding the characters that compelling.

This is a movie that we can probably all safely skip, just like all the other Transformers movies. Unfortunately, like all the other Transformers movies, it’ll probably be a huge financial success.

But hey, dinobots.