When I was a child, I was a big fan of the Transformers. When I heard they were making a movie on the franchise, I couldn’t make up my mind whether to be skeptical or excited. I checked the IMDb listing and two names stood out. “Michael Bay” and “Megan Fox”. My spirits sunk immediately.
The movie wasn’t as horrible as I had expected, but watching it felt like they were violating some aspect of my childhood. The second movie didn’t make things any better, and I lay awake at night wondering what I had done to deserve this horrible treatment from Michael Bay.
Hi! I'm fighting robots!
Well, it seems like Megan Fox has come to a similar conclusion. A few days ago, we learned that she has decided to leave the Transformers franchise, and now we’ve learned that she’s being replaced by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, a lingerie model most famous for her work with Victoria’s Secret and Burberry. To the delight of the inevitable slew of fan boys that will pop up around the world after the movie premiers, even a cursory Google image search (semi-NSFW, obviously) will reveal enough skin to satisfy even the most demanding of teenage boys.
Personally, I’m having trouble understanding why they even need what I’m sure is supposed to be a stereotypical “hot girl” to support the franchise. After all, weren’t the Transformers supposed to be stories about robots fighting other robots, or am I missing some integral piece of the story here? Sure, you may argue that we need characters to identify with and so on, but how are girls sitting in the target audience of Transformers (which, mind you, was a PG-13 movie) supposed to identify with the Megan Fox character or the future Rosie Huntington-Whiteley character? How many guys can identify with the Shia LeBouf-character, for that matter?
I suggest they simply abandon the movies and go back to creating the awesome comics and toys they made back in the early and mid 80′s. I don’t know if it’s my own childhood talking, but those were far more impressive than anything that they’ve turned out in the movies.