Michael Bay
Interview By: Rick Mele
Fanboys beware: Transformers director Michael Bay is not your friend.
For those of you not predisposed to the action blockbuster set, Bay carved a niche for himself in the mid-90s by pumping out back-to-back-to-back summer hits with Bad Boys, The Rock, and Armageddon, in Hollywood's version of the Triple Crown. By now, Michael Bay is a household name, synonymous with big explosions and even bigger budgets. So large is his cultural footprint, that Bay was 'honored' with an extended homage in the recent action spoof Hot Fuzz. Of course, this lofty reputation also means Bay is guaranteed bank at the box office according to Hollywood studios (2005's flop The Island notwithstanding).
So when the Guru of Mainstream himself Steven Spielberg needed someone to guide his latest big-budget, high-profile tentpole into theaters this summer, he knew exactly who to call. (He also might've felt a little guilty about sending Bay the script for The Island.) And, from that moment on, Transformers gearheads should've known something was up.
That's because, for all Bay's repeated assertions that 'I make my own movie; I don't have someone to tell me what to do,' in reality, Bay marches to the beat of a different drummer: the studios that pay him big money to make them, well, even bigger money. During the press conference, Bay keeps going back to one word: 'accessible.' Make no mistake, he was hired to turn Transformers into a surefire money-maker, by diluting the inherent geekiness and making the film more accessible to mainstream audiences.
To hear Bay tell it, he's sort of a modern-day Robin Hood, looting the nostalgia of a group of cantankerous nerds and co-opting it for a wider audience. He says, 'I was not a Transformers fan before I signed onto this movie. I think I was two years older when the toys came out, so I just discovered girls then, [laughs] instead of Optimus Prime'. I tried to make this movie for non-Transformers fans; I wanted it to be a little bit more, if you can say, adult. I'm sure I'm going to get flak for' [making] an edgy movie about a toy.'
When asked if he found it easier to make Transformers without having the burdens of nostalgia, Bay replied, 'Listen, I'm a huge Transformers fan now. I can officially say I've probably thought more about robots on Earth than anybody else in the past year and a half. But I actually think that because I wasn't a fan, [it] makes it more accessible to other people. 'Like, you know, Megatron was a gun, and I'm like, uh' I don't get that.
"And I did get a lot of flak from fans on the 'net, like 'Michael Bay, you wrecked my childhood,' 'Michael Bay, you suck,' 'We're gonna protest at his office' ' they protested my old office, apparently [laughter] ' that's true. The death threats freaked me out' but I would listen to fans on the 'net, I really would. I would kind of hear their comments, but I'm still gonna make my movie. And I'm still gonna put flames on Optimus.'
For Bay, it wasn't the cultural cachet of the Transformers that lured him to the project, and it clearly wasn't the legions of passionate fans. Instead, Bay praises the straightforward story underneath this latest retelling: 'When Steven [Spielberg] called me up a year and a half ago, he said 'I want you to direct Transformers; it's a story about a boy who buys his first car.' To me, that was a great hook. I hung up, and I said 'Thank you, I'm not doing that stupid silly toy movie'' but I thought about it, that hook was great'. I liked the simplicity of it; it just made it somewhat more accessible'. I just thought this idea, if it was done in a cool way, could be a big idea, a fun movie idea, [and] a fun summer movie.'
According to Bay, despite being taken in by the simplicity of the story, his original vision for Transformers was much larger than what ended up being filmed, and he credits Spielberg for encouraging him to scale back a bit: 'I've got some really cool stuff that I came up with for the first one that was just too expensive. But Steven was right, [he said] 'No, we should pull back and not have as many robots so you can really focus more.' I wish I got into some of the faces more of some of the robots. But it was really Steven who said, 'I think we should make it like 5 against 5 or 5 against 6, or something like that.' 'It was good we scaled back a bit.'
And, despite professing complete creative control over the film, Bay acknowledges just how much market research and testing went into the film, from which facial features played better on the robots ('We did a lot of facial studies, and emotion is so hard without that kind of movement. We tried it solid, it just didn't look right'), to focus groups.
Bay says, 'I do little focus groups on my own; I'll take like 30 kids into a little screening room. I'll do like 9-year-olds to 15-year-olds, and I did like 16 year-olds to 25 year-olds, and I have someone who has nothing to do with the movie come in and say, 'You can say whatever you want about this movie.' I show it in rough form' and they were great, because they will fill out little pages about what is confusing them, what lines they thought sucked. I mean, they're very blunt about it. 'There was something where they hated Megan. She said one line and the women just turned off. And I'm like, 'We've got to deal with that.' '
All of this constant testing and re-testing might be boffo for the box office, but it probably spells bad news for the hardcore Transformers fans hoping to catch a glimpse of their childhood memories up on the big screen.
The feisty and, at times, combative director is infamous for making life hell on his actors (Bay insists these stories are overblown, but admits to being 'your worst nightmare basketball coach' during action scenes). From the sounds of it, his latest venture might just encourage fanboys everywhere to return the favor.
