Thoughts from the Usher Podium: Why I Will Not Be Seeing Transformers 5

I will not be seeing Transformers: The Last Knight in theaters. If I live my life right, I probably won't be seeing another Transformers (2007-Present) movie ever again. I have given the first trilogy approximately 900 minutes of my life (the rough amount of time you wind up with when you watch them all twice) and in that time, the only thing I got out of them was as existential crisis. If the answer to the question why do I watch movies, is sumptuous wonders like Arrival (2016), then the question itself is raised by movies like Michael Bay's rock'em sock'em robot franchise. They are by-in-large the antithesis of what I find reprehensible about mainstream movies nowadays. Not only are they just structurally bad movies - they are also good in all the wrong ways.

The rapturous acceptance of the Transformers franchise into popular media confirms a few things for me. One: people don't know what they want until it's in front of them. Two: the average filmgoer has a well developed visual vocabulary. Analyzing each film frame by frame uncovers layers upon layers of breathtaking imagery with a scary level of uniformity. Pause literally at any moment of, say Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and you will see that nearly every frame is composed to look like the glossy veneer of a magazine cover. The lighting, the color correction, the lenses all point to a deep desire to make everything pop - and we as the audience love it because its what we expect.

Director Michael Bay then takes everything one step further by masterfully utilizing his camera to maximize the awesome. His usage of parallax and epic sweeps across the controlled chaos of his sets, feed into the idea that what you're watching is quite simply the most incredible thing you've seen to date. Then there's the editing which cuts back and forth just slow enough for the eyes to register. Yet its quickness, when done right synchronizes with the beat of a heart pumping with a week's worth of adrenaline. As far as sustained awe, Transformers still remains unsurpassed.

If only these guys were just selling toys...

I know it sounds like I'm gushing and in a way I am. To dismiss one of the most popular franchises of all time as adolescent stupidity downplays the dangers of Transformers. Much like the infamous Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will (1935), the Transformers franchise is an exercise in size and scale. Yet despite its power, Transformers as whole has never really stood for anything other than maybe to exist for its own sake. Hasbro, after all is first and foremost a $7.2 billion toy company with a lot of plastic to move worldwide.

This is where I and the franchise really part ways. For while it seems almost obvious to point out that every single movie is essentially the exact same plot over and over again, the fact that they're also pointless is the real straw that breaks the dinobot's back. The characters and the narrative holes that they fill are all basically the same from movie to movie. The action sequences, despite their epic-ness feel the same because they come with the exact same set of stakes. It's a series that seems to just stand still in a world passing them by; holding on to some sense warped of traditionalism like it's trying to be the next James Bond.

Here's why this matters: any franchise that exists for its own sake will inevitably turn to any means to keep the money train rolling. If audiences become accustomed to this (which at this point seems like they have), Transformers will be able to smuggle any message into its movies through its very rudimentary storytelling with audiences being none-the-wiser. Its technically already happened in Age of Extinction (2014), where Chinese government officials are portrayed as the pinnacle of excellence (probably to guarantee Chinese box office). By comparison the U.S military is continually seen as woefully unprepared or willfully duplicitous in our demise at the hands of the Decepticons.

What's worse is no matter how bad the movies get, they still get the largest platform available to sell their empty, blusterous wares. People are undoubtedly smarter than they used to be but Hollywood insists that they franchise and dumb down everything. As a result smarter movies are fighting against the current to get made. Mass audiences flock to Transformers because it gives them exactly what they expect. But because that production has so many resources and because that production gets the green light all the time, there's hardly reason for audiences to expect anything more out of popular entertainment. This is a shame.

Now I'm not some conspiracy theorist claiming there's a man in a black suit on set purposely nudging the world towards Idiocracy (2006). More realistically the decisions made in the formation and execution of the franchise are done for the sake of expediency and not some overarching desire to become a visual opioid. That said the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and it seemingly only takes one person to say "let's really go up that skirt," for a Transforrmers movie to in one camera motion approve of the objectification of women and colonoscopies without consent. If Michael Bay was approached to put, "Yvan eht nioj" in his newest film he'd probably do it.

Thus I will no longer participate in the Transformers franchise. At best The Last Knight will be a retread of every other film of this series, giving its hardcore audience the same level of satisfaction as a Big Mac. At its worst, the movie will be a shill for some the series' most irritating and damaging cultural ills while making me actually dread the day this series becomes good again. I get to watch movies for free but I've wasted enough of my time. Time I will never, ever get back.