It’s been ten years since the first Transformers movie debuted and the franchise is still alive, both for the joy of those who love the fight between giant robots and for the sadness of those who prefer more complex scenarios. Michael Bay, the director of the film, is also hated and adored for the same reason, taking precedence over longs of explosion that subjugate the plot and ignore any logic.
But logic is not necessarily what makes a movie successful, and Bay knows it. With agile cameras and differentiated angles, the director manages to establish a look that surprises even those who do not like his films. In the case of Transformers, the result was the creation of that kind of fan that is glazed in the complex design of production images. An example was what happened three years ago: fans edited the film, leaving only fight scenes and taking out any part that tells the story of the robots, and posted on YouTube – the video was quite successful until the site took the recording of the copyright. However, the new Transformers changes the tone and style of the franchise.
The first Transformers tells the story of Sam Witwicky, played by Shia LaBeauf, a teenager who clearly needed “something more” in her life while experiencing puberty. The plot of the film seems to have the structure of E.T. the Extraterrestrial directed by Steven Spielberg, since, as in E.T., the help or this “something more” comes from another planet. Of course, unlike Spielberg’s classic, Transformers (which was produced by Spielberg) contains quite adult action and comedy scenes. However, the plot always goes back to Sam’s personal life, which becomes the key in the fight between the Autobots (the good robots) and the Decepticons (the evil robots).
The following franchise films are getting farther and farther away from the characters’ personal lives and turning to war between robots. Mark Wahlberg, playing Cade Yeager, an inventor and divorced father, replaces Sam as the lead character. The bet on more action and less story, from a movie that there was not much focus on the plot, displeased enough. For example, Transformers: The Age of Extinction, the title of 2014, had an 18% approval of the public on the Rotten Tomatoes website.
However, Transformers: The Last Knight comes to change the focus of the franchise once again. To begin with, the film refers to the most obscure scenes in human history, such as medieval wars and even Nazism. The film, in this way, becomes more serious and somber. Just see that Anthony Hopkins is part of the cast to understand this. The robots, who fought each other before, now fight against humans. The shift in focus, which seems to contain an identity crisis, seems to reflect contemporary changes where people try to define and redefine their purposes. Even so, the film is still “Transformers”, that is, action scenes and comedy are still part of the plot.
(article translated from the original version in portuguese, by Google Translate)