Universal Monstrosities: Bayformers

So much less than meets the eye.


In the Summer of 2007, Michael Bay alongside Executive Producer Steven Spielberg unleashed the live action feature film adaptation of toy company Hasbro’s popular action figure and animated property, “Transformers."

Depicting a war raging across eons between two factions of warring machine-like organisms from the planet Cybertron, known as the Autobots and Decepticons, the franchise has seen many an iteration since its original 80s outing, writing around the repackaging of their Japanese “Car Robots” source material and serving as an almost generational touchstone for children’s entertainment media franchises.

For roughly three and a half decades, children have grown up with the “Transformers” franchise and despite the consistencies in lore that have developed and maintained, many of the have grown up with iterations of the franchise that are drastically different from one another.

One would think that such a rich lore and mythology would lend itself well to a potential film franchise. What we ended up with however, was a bit of a mess.

Although criticized for its thin writing, generally poor acting, and tonal inconsistencies, “Transformers” was never the less a hit when it was unleashed upon theater going audiences.

A substantial commercial success upon release, the film did however earn a mildly fair critical reception from reviewers, with several critics accepting it for the functional yet disposable spectacle it seemed to be aiming to be while fans critical of the movie at the very least could see room for improvement now that the stakes of the franchise have been set, clearing way for richer storytelling possibilities.

Unfortunately, those sensibilities never materialized. It’s direct sequel opened up to audiences in Summer 2009 to a critical lambasting, despite overtaking its predecessors box office take substantially, thus beginning the trend of downward trajectory in critical reception inversely to the amount of money the franchise began raking in, much more of which was coming from the burgeoning international movie going market rather than the North American domestic performance.

Despite the primary complaint of the franchise being that it somehow manages to outdo its laziness in screenwriting, editing, and direction from entry to entry in a capacity that is becoming downright farcical, the franchise continued to maintain a more or less linear film to film continuity, with each movie being utilized primarily to advertise toys and keep the ending open for another entry.

The difference between the first four films and “Transformers: The Last Knight” however, is that the latter came wholly into being in a post-Avengers Hollywood and Paramount sadly couldn’t leave what success they had alone.

I could write a dissertation about everything wrong with “Transformers: The Last Knight,” from the opening frame of the movie’s awkward transition out of credits into a medieval battle fought by King Arthur with the help of an alcoholic Merlin using a Cybertronian dragon to fight off human armies which has nothing to do with the scattershot plot of the actual film, to the climactic battle that seems to think its incarnations of Autobot leader Optimus Prime, Decepticon commander Megatron, and silent irritating scout Bumblebee have developed some sort of actual worthwhile character, to the chaos in between of disconnected plot threads and aspect ratio inconsistencies that would be distractingly hilarious if they weren’t running in a feature over two and a half hours long.

“Transformers: The Last Knight” is a bizarre Lovecraftian abominable construct of cinema that fails at damn near everything that it attempts to do on every level while arrogantly pointing the finger at you for thinking that a $250 million movie should probably not be sensory torture as an experience.

Critiquing it is a rabbit hole meant to be tackled by far more talented and better equipped souls than I to diminishing returns, as while there’s so much wrong with the movie, it’s not flawed in new ways so much as it finds ways to continuously beef up its own flaws while erasing any charm that could potentially surface.

For that reason, I aim to focus purely on the mission statement of “Universal Monstrosities.” Even if I didn’t find Michael Bay’s arrogance towards storytelling intellectually offensive as both an enthusiast of storytelling and a lifelong “Transformers” fan, it seems to be general consensuses that even those that like these movies, acknowledge that they’re as low as the bar can get in terms of standards in blockbusters.

Let’s instead examine the factors that have potentially led plans for the “Bayformers” cinematic universe to fizzle out before taking off.

Ever since the very notion of Cinematic Universe’s becoming feasible in the modern day, studios have turned the race to establish the next Marvel into a dumping ground of content by way of the same broken method of selling a franchise with the eventual promise of a good story rather than the other way around.

The result is a bizarre feature length commercial for future merchandisable features, inevitably advertising their own standalone sequels, independent of the potential for some sort of half baked cross over.

Laughable attempts at this include Sony’s defunct “Amazing Spider-Man,” the previously covered “Dark Universe” featuring “The Mummy 2017” via Universal, and of course the awkward retrofit of the previously conceived of as stand alone “Man of Steel” by Warner Bros. executives thanks to “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” to create the unofficially titled “DC Extended Universe,” otherwise known as the cinematic equivalent of a troubled artist brought to drug rehab by his own hubris.

“Transformers: The Last Knight” is no exception to this level of creative bankruptcy.

From the moment that the film begins with its…”unique” view of Earth’s Medieval past, to the focus on the secret society of the Order of the Witwiccans, the film actively fights to push forth the narrative that Transformers have been visiting Earth throughout the majority of the planet’s history, entangling themselves in key events and opening the door to a variety of side stories and period pieces for the series to blindly perpetuate its own existence with whatever half baked idea it wants to play with as the central story of the franchise continues to freefall into full collapse.

Ignoring the strange fixation on the ancient aliens concept that continuously crops up in these movie, which begins by explicitly stating that Transformers being on Earth is unusual before gradually retconning their own history with each new film to the point of barely resembling what they started out as, the desperation and transparency of these concepts are just unnecessary.

The fate of the upcoming “Bumblebee” spinoff is up in the air (although it does at least show promise). However, the period piece nature of it being set in the 80s has yet to play prominently into the selling points of its marketing.

The primary point of attraction for “Transformers” is the titular robotic organisms themselves. It’s a franchise with an expansive interstellar mythology fleshing out the various characterizations of characters both major and minor across every incarnation.

If the major criticism of these movies is that the human element and hamfisted efforts to appeal to it drag down characterization for the Cybertronians and the unique style of action that they can provide, why keep it centered on Earth?

Entire “Transformers” subfranchises in the vein of “Star Wars” or “Guardians of the Galaxy” could be born and flourish but that is ultimately not Paramount’s prerogative. Their goal is to ultimately keep a stale brand alive and producing by playing it safe, which brings up the final contradiction of expanding said franchise to begin with.

The fundamental purpose behind developing a cinematic universe is to expand upon what’s happening on screen with new stories that make a setting feel alive.

What is the purpose of expanding the story of a product that damn near prides itself on being the calculated opposite of passable storytelling?

Paramount could have just continued making these films, ad infinitum, entry by entry, and the return on investment would have been just fine because their business doesn’t come from the sort of audience invested in that level of intricate expansion

It’s a gambit that would’ve had diminishing returns even if it bore fruits but it would appear that even the passive viewing audience has begun to move on from the mayhem of Bay’s vision for “Transformers,” as the film just barely eked out a box office profit, sending signals that this film series as initially envisioned may very well be deader than disco.