The Transformers movies (sans Age of Extinction): This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

It's not very often that a movie series's entire existence is what inspires me to write a blog post again. But alas, here we are. Of all the movie franchises to come out since the new millenium, no series has taken as much crap as the Transformers movies. With the exception of the first one, audiences seem to be in general agreement that Transformers pretty much sucks balls. Though, let's be honest here, even the first one has been condemned by some movie goers. So for the sake of argument, let's just say that we hate all the Transformers movies.

But why? Well, much like the Star Wars prequels, everybody seems to have their own reason for it. But here, I've come up with the top five reasons that we all hate Transformers. Feel free to pick your favorites

#1- The Run Time
For some people, it's the fact that a stupid mindless action movie is 2 1/2 hours (which gives The Dark Knight and Django Unchained a run for their money) when it could just be 90 minutes. I personally never minded a long run time. Except when I have to pee. But that's a common complaint I hear about them, so I'm putting it up here.

#2- The Humor
For some people, it's that world-class Michael Bay humor that sits on the border between "Just plain stupid" and "Downright racist/sexist".
(Case and point, these two)

 (And these two, to drive my point home. Well, three. There was a scene that involved that dog ferociously humping another dog)
While we are in this category, we might as well mention the not-so-subtle misogyny that Michael Bay exhibits towards the leading ladies in the movies.

(Seriously, there are so many other more efficient ways to position yourself while doing this)
(This shot was held for several seconds while destruction and explosions and, you know, stuff is going on around her. Her first scene is her wearing nothing but Shia's shirt. Her scene after that is her dressed like a sexy librarian.)

I would get started on the inclusion of actors like John Turturro, Francis Macdormand and John Malkovich, but I respect the Coen brothers far too much to go down that dark path.

#3- The Story (Villain)
And for others, it's, well, everything. Honestly, when you sit and actually listen to the dialogue and pay attention to the story, just about everything is wrong with them. Now, I know some Transformers apologists who say that "They're just summer action flicks", which is true, but does that give them an excuse to just not try? Or rather, try, but come up with the stupidest fucking thing possible?

(Seriously? Robot Heaven? Are we gonna find Data and Bishop up there too?)

For example, have you ever noticed that whoever the villain is in any of these movies, their plot is essentially always the exact same thing? They want to rebuild their homeworld, so they find some stupid maguffin artifact thingy, and they need to use Earth as a host to rebuild their planet... For some reason. Seriously, it's never explained why they even need to rebuild their planet in the first place. They can survive just fine on earth. Now as I'm typing this, I've yet to see the new one, but how much do you want to bet that's gonna be the story again?
 Compare that to Man of Steel. Bear with me. One of the problems I had with that movie is that Zod's plan was essentially the same as the villains in Transformers. Here's the difference. There was more weight felt with Zod. It's already established that Zod has been practically programmed to do anything for the sake of his people, and his planet, hence his rebellion at the beginning. In the flashback scenes later on, Zod and his followers are shown feeling absolutely destroyed at seeing the remnants of their civilization. So, for them, recreating Krypton and bringing back their people becomes the noblest of goals. Yes, they still do villainous things and the audience doesn't identify with them, but at least we are given a reason. Transformers, on the other hand, we just have to go with it.

I hate to keep bringing examples of why these movies are terrible, but with these movies, it's like shooting fish in a barrel made of fish. Here's another example:

#4- The Story (Heroes)
The story at the beginning of all these movies is the same too. Humanity begins to question whether or not the transformers should be welcome on earth. Some shit happens, somebody blames the autobots and they are forced to leave. Right after this decision is made, some more shit happens and we decide that we need them again, and they save the day. By the third movie, you'd think the humans would have learned to just adapt to having them around.

#5- The Characters
And that leads to my final point about. (I swear, I am not looking for things to hate, they just present themselves to me). The human characters in these movies are placed into two categories: dull and boring, or annoying and retarded (again I point to the parents). The female leads are given nothing to do except to get captured and look pretty. The rest of the time, they're just, there.  The soldiers are there to just be useless in a fight, and Shia Labeouf is just there for us to loathe.There's always a political figure in there to get angry at the autobots. They're supposed to be the jerk of the story, until you realize they kind of have a point. This time around, it's played by Stanley Tucci. This is why we can't have nice things.

The autobot characters are placed into two categories as well: Optimus Prime/Megatron, and everybody else. Okay, maybe Bumblebee is the exception but seriously, apart from those three, can you remember any of the names of the other autobots? And more importantly than that, can you remember what they look like? Another common complaint about these movies is that they make almost no effort to distinguish the autobots from the decepticons. Which makes these siezure inducing fight scenes all the more hard to watch. Who am I supposed to root for? Well, there's Optimus, so let's just keep our eye on him.

And let's be honest, the characters might be the most glaring issue with the trilogy. We seem to have entered an age where characters are all that people talk about nowadays. Depending on which franchise you're talking about, characters are usually what end up being people's favorite thing about a series. And the fact that a sci-fi series of all things with thousand year old robots that just end up being bland or annoying, might just be the biggest nail in the coffin.

So there you go, my top five reasons for not liking the Transformers movies. If you think of more, let me know. If you enjoy them, more power to you.