Not only did it stink, even with Megan Fox on a motorcycle, but it may also be the biggest recipient of government subsidies in Hollywood history. The US military often provides personnel and equipment to filmmakers, free of charge, in exchange for implicit (or explicit) promises to depict the Armed Forces in a favorable light. Transformers 2 got more of these bennies than any previous film. The Army’s Hollywood liaison (yes, it has one) calls Transformers 2 “the largest joint-military movie ever made.” See David Bordwell’s blog for the gory details.
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/10477/another-reason-to-dislike-transformers-2/
Another Reason to Dislike “Transformers 2″
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Transformers 2 is “military porn.” If the military hadn’t been so involved in the film-making, it would merely have been second-rate “military porn.”
Glad to see I’m not the only one who hates two hour long Lockheed Martin commercials.
Doesn’t a carrier get sunk? Thats what the trailer seem to show. I guess the Navy didn’t pony up?
To me, the neoconservative propaganda was the worst part of the film. The new President is a bit of a pacifist and portrayed as weak for wanting to understand why the Decepticons want to attack the world.
The best part: watching a robot eat a pyramid.
They even showed the Navy Rail Gun that is currently extremely problematic in real life.
It didn’t help that the “good” cars were GM models.
One of the odd, disturbing aspects of the first movie (I haven’t seen the sequel) is the clumsy insertion of a military guy as a prominent character, and his squad, for no reason whatsoever that’s integral to the plot. They just have this square-jawed military guy running around with his gear pack and an automatic weapon, barking orders into his earpiece-microphone, a kind of cartoon-version of a walking advertisement for recruiting into special forces.
There’s a funny summary/FAQ (with some salty language) about the Transformers 2 movie here: http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php
Over the years, I’ve watched and read a lot of futuristic fantasy themed stuff like Transformers and it continually blows my mind the political and economic assumptions of the writers. The most prevalent is their seemingly universal (and in my opinion, desired) concept of world governments, militarism and socialism. See this in: Ender’s Game, Babylon 5, The Forever War, every iteration of Star Trek, The Foundation Series, the Stargate franchise, Battlestar Galactica, etc.
Every one of these franchises/stories has a military or socialist overtone that was always disturbing to me. The only futuristic fantasy that ever made any sense to me from an ethical point of view was the Firefly series (although it is not without its blemishes.)
There’s a similar militarism in the gaming industry, albeit without the socialism or fascistic concepts portrayed in movies and books. It makes sense, since a games are interactive, there’s less of a need for a large scale narrative. Look at Metal Gear Solid, The Call of Duty Series, Halo, Rainbow Six, Battlefield 1942, or any other 1st person shooter. I think you’ll see more military collaboration in movies and video games, as studios try to cater to an audience that desires fantastical action of a war fantasy and the military tries to improve its image and possibly get new recruits. In the same way Top Gun was a Navy recruitment film, Call of Duty and GI Joe will be for the marines or whatever.
I dunno if MGS should be included on that list…While theres a lot of depiction of military technology and such in the series, the storyline is surprisingly anti-war…And even somewhat(though not explicitly) liberterian. Snake(the main character in the series) is a character who hates war, even while he recognizes its the only thing he’s really good at(Which makes him the most interesting character in video games imo). The ‘bad guys’ are always those who WANT warfare, either as a means to end, or even simply as an end in-itself…
Although the most openly liberterian games I’v seen are the Fallout series…
All of this kind of reminds me of a conversation I had with an ex-boss about “Independence Day”. He explained that when Jeff Goldblum’s character went from being falling down drunk to coming up with the plan for destroying the alien mother ship in an instant that it just wasn’t “believable”. To which I replied, “It was a movie about aliens invading the earth, what’s NOT to believe?”
I liked the FAQ, though. I’ve seen the movie and he pretty much has it pegged.
Just my thoughts,
SOD
Hate to say it, but I enjoyed the movie (and Megan FOX and that decepticon chick) but I have to say the best scenes were Sam’s story line and fights between the transformers.
It was so obvious that the military and the GM cars were way out of place in the story. I mean, how stupid was it to make bumblebee into a corvet and optimus prime with cheesy flames? How stupid was the idea that the military is just as strong as the autobots (with “highly classified” weapons) when fighting the decepticons?
Oh and I vomited just a little at the idea (from the first movie onward) that the hoover dam was not a boondoggle at all, but actually an elaborate fortress when our enlightened bureaucratic science whizzes invented the cell phone, the computer, and basically all modern technology because they were so “wise” to control megatron and the all-spark (yeah right!)
They basically crapped on all the heroic inventors and entreprenuers that made those inventions glorious for us common folk.
And they didn’t even show enough new autobots or decepticons! I mean, really!?! Its a TRANSFORMERS movie!! Why would they let military scenes crowd out the autobots!? (I guess art imitates life here!)
RTRebel wrote:
“Oh and I vomited just a little at the idea (from the first movie onward) that the hoover dam was not a boondoggle at all, but actually an elaborate fortress when our enlightened bureaucratic science whizzes invented the cell phone, the computer, and basically all modern technology because they were so “wise” to control megatron and the all-spark (yeah right!)”
Huh, so *that’s* where Al Gore invented the Internet!
@J Cortez:
I think you’re being a bit selective in your portrayal of sci-fi as predominantly totalitarian and militaristic. It’s ironic that you quote the Forever War as an example when it’s widely considered one of the most anti-war of all sci-fi classics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_War#Significance_and_criticism). Other well known anti-totalitarian sci-fi includes Brave New World, 1984 and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (libertarian revolution on the moon). Other sci-fi with decidedly non totalitarian visions of the future include Snow Crash, most of William Gibson’s cyberpunk novels, most of Iain Banks’ culture novels and a lot of Philip K Dick’s output.
It’s somewhat inevitable that military technology will be a major feature of a lot of sci-fi because conflict makes for interesting stories. For the same reason sci-fi tends to portray distopias as utopias don’t make for very interesting reading. Still, I think it’s misleading to characterize the majority of sci-fi as militaristic and totalitarian/socialist.
J Cortez,
I think some exceptions are franchises like Star Wars, which depicted the Republic as having problems because it had effectively become a state corporatist regime. In video games, I think a lot of the Nintendo and Squaresoft-made stuff (especially from the ’80s and ’90s) lacked socialism and even militarism, despite the fighting.
In _The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past_, for example, your major enemy in the light world are your own country’s soldiers, who also seem to fill a law enforcement role: The hero is essentially a medieval cop killer.
_Final Fantasy IV_ (II in the US): The hero Cecil Harvey starts the game as Captain of Baron’s Red Wings, Baron’s fleet of airships, and commits aggression against Mysidia to steal its crystal and commits several other crimes in the process. When he gets back home, he is wracked with guilt for his crimes and resolves to never follow such an order again. Unfortunately, he still trusts his king (who sent him to commit those crimes in the first place) and is tricked by the king into causing more destruction; after that, he renounces his oath to the king and sets out to defeat Baron’s efforts to steal the crystals. (This game has been re-released for the Nintendo DS.)
It’s a long description, but it’s clear there are some gems out there.
J Cortez, I can’t see how you came to that conclusion about the Ender’s Game series – in nearly all of the books, the human authorities are presented as the main antagonists – they are responsible for brainwashing and tricking Ender into the first xenocide, regulate and thus stifle the culture of the pequeninos, and are only narrowly averted from directly causing the 2nd and 3rd xenocides. Indeed, Peter, who united created the one world government, is presented as a twisted power-hungry demagogue.
Orson Scott Card is clearly rather conservative, but he is not as in favour of totalitarianism as you might think.
Although Brave New World is a work of genius – it’s hilarious satire of Keynesian economics being a highlight for me, Aldous Huxley was rabidly anticapitalist, as can be seen more explicitly in ‘After Many a Summer’, which I am currently enjoying.
You really just need to know where to look – I find that the works of legendary comic writer Alan Moore and film director Guillermo Del Toro have a particularly anarchic spirit. Brazil, a film about a nightmarish bureaucratic dystopia is excellent, as is the more well-known Minority Report (based on a book by Philip K Dick).
J Cortez (seems like everyone has a disagreement there!)
Have you ever completed a Metal gear Solid game? Although each of them begin with you as a gruff soldier following orders, as you play the game the anti-militarism themes are very prominent, as the main character, whether its snake, raiden, or big boss. Metal Gear Solid 3 begins with you as a soldier in the cold-war period and paints the Soviet Union as the “bad guy”- but as you continue to play the game it is obvious that both nations are ultimately selfish and have no care for the individual.
Hell Metal Gear Solid 4 even begins with you fighting along with the rebels in the middle east against powerful western Private Military companies.
The horror of war has always been surprisingly evident in the Call of Duty series – levels where you kill people while they sleep and carpet bomb people from the sky are chilling to say the least, especially, as your comrades laugh and joke about the carnage.
Deus Ex, probably one of the greatest games ever created, starts in the near future with you fighting for a UN sanctioned international taskforce against the National Secessionist Forces, who are formed from rebellious militias that formed when the 2nd Amendment was repealed. You later discover that elements of the government (including FEMA and the RAND Corporation) created the plague that they are using as an excuse for the huge increase in defence, police and security provision, and side with the NSF. Scary stuff, as they predict the War on Terror a few years before 9/11, and with SARS, bird flu and swine flu, we all know how well governments capitalise on disease epidemics.
Guys come on. Did you expect transformers the action robot movie to be some sort of libertarian utopia? In reality we live in a world of conflict and life in our society is more socialist than libertarian. The film is based on a reality. What kind of action flic do you want? One where they sit around and discuss philosophy while transforming into giant robot warriors? Remember that the primes in the movie respect the natural rights of all beings. And as far as the military involvement every movie uses it when it can. Right or wrong it is what it is. You want to change the reality of a film. Change the the reality of this world.
J Cortez, you clearly have not played MGS2 or MGS3 if you think it has a “socialist” or pro-military theme. That game is about corrupt military and govt and how the individual has the right to life and liberty regardless of what the govt claims those words should mean. It is a genius game. As for cod4, while it is true that game has pro-military/anti-terrorist themes, the makers are just game designers, not politicians. I know one of them and I can promise you he doesn’t take direction from the govt lol
Ah, then there’s Brad Bird’s “Iron Giant.”
Ah, then there’s Brad Bird’s “Iron Giant.”
And as far as the military involvement every movie uses it when it can. Right or wrong it is what it is. You want to change the reality of a film. Change the the reality of this world.
I think the criticism here is more focused on the fact that the military-movie complex operates as a covert form of government-sponsored propaganda.
That propaganda is a “reality of this world,” one of the sorrier, disturbing aspects of it, and it ends up being reflected in the content of the movie. The fact that the movie sucks as a result is not exactly the main point.
As LightBringer mentioned, check out Deus Ex (the first game anyway). That whole game is anti-government, anti-collective, and warns against the police state, surveillance state, etc. All the enemies are corrupted government and big business/science/phrama people who are bent on world domination by enslaving everyone under a one world government ruled by a man-god.
Interesting fact about the game, the Statue of Liberty is bombed in the game instead of the Twin towers. The Twin towers are missing in the skyline because the caused the game to slow down too much. So they struck them out with the back story being that terrorists destroyed them.
Bwahahahaha! Funny read Magnus! Someone told me that after seeing the movie it was special effects and nothing much else. However it seems the author goes some way into giving an answer to this predicament:
Why is the U.S. military in this movie at all, then?
Because Michael Bay has a huge erection for jets and tanks and aircraft carriers and considers giant robots only a necessary evil for the film. At least 15 full minutes of the film’s 150-minute run time is nothing but footage of jets and tanks and planes without any robots or actual action whatsoever.
Anyone that posted in response to my original post:
No, I haven’t played Metal Gear Solid. I’ve only seen it in rotation along with Call of Duty, Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell at a friend’s house and assumed it was the same. (All of those types of games look the same to me after awhile.) My apologies, I was wrong.
The Forever War I have gotten confused with another book whose name I can’t remember. I read that book (whatever the name is) in middle school over 15 years ago and save for the details of a fascistic/militaristic society in an interstellar war with aliens, the title escapes me. Again, my apologies.
In regards to the entire Enderverse, I can’t comment on all of them as I’ve only read the four Bean books and the original Ender’s Game. But from those I came away with the idea that Card believed that statism and the people drawn to it, while sometimes extreme and terrible, were necessary part of society. Especially in the last books of the Bean Quartet, the IF was trying to consolidate all power because according to them, to not do so would mean the end of the human race. The main characters, while disagreeing with their methods, in the end, agreed and pretty much did what the IF suggested. Overall, I think Card was definitely against some of the crazier actions of the characters as well as the recognizable child abuse in all the stories, but not against the statism and global government.
The novel about a fascistic/militaristic society in an interstellar war with aliens you are thinking about might be Starship Troopers, which is a famously militaristic novel. The book doesn’t really talk about the non military aspects of society enough to judge how fascist the society is but I’ve just read it recently and my impression is that the society is not fascist, it’s closer to Sparta than Nazi Germany. Heinlein’s politics are complicated though and it’s not accurate to describe him as a statist since he also wrote the book of libertarian revolution on the moon I mentioned, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Jan Shafer wrote:
Guys come on. Did you expect transformers the action robot movie to be some sort of libertarian utopia? In reality we live in a world of conflict and life in our society is more socialist than libertarian. The film is based on a reality. What kind of action flic do you want? One where they sit around and discuss philosophy while transforming into giant robot warriors? Remember that the primes in the movie respect the natural rights of all beings. And as far as the military involvement every movie uses it when it can. Right or wrong it is what it is. You want to change the reality of a film. Change the the reality of this world.”
If this film was based on reality, the military would bomb Egyptian citizens every time Starscream shoots at them (they’s be harboring them terrrists! or was THAT the collateral damage this time?)
“Doesn’t a carrier get sunk? Thats what the trailer seem to show. I guess the Navy didn’t pony up?”
On the contrary, Floyd. Sinking ships is the MIC equivalent of broken-window economic opportunity. In such a scenario they are the proverbial glaziers, and damned be any other potential use of scarce resources.
Sailors, of course, are expendable — hell, kill enough of them at once and it becomes a recruiter’s “Avenge them!” wet dream.
Also to Floyd: “Remember the Maine,” and all that malarky.
The story of the movie Transformers was very nice but transforming the story into real movie was bad and the movie only had nice story-line but overall it was a bad movie.
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