Orci & Kurtzman Really Pass the Racism Buck to Bay

I bought tickets last week for yesterday but didn't go...the alleged racism is just one reason...I'm just sick of these brain-dead blockbusters choking up cinemas, so I'm not supporting it.

I know people avoiding the movie because of the racism...some wont even take their kids.

Boy, you sure don't like those guys, do you?

???

If you bought tickets......you did support it.


edit. Damn it, Bob beat me to it.

Weirdly, someone claiming to be Orci showed up in the AICN talkbacks, saying basically the opposite (that every significant aspect of the film was present in the original script).


(actually, that being AICN, I suppose it's not really that weird)

It was him.

http://www.donmurphy.net/board/showthread.php?t=31346

I know we all didn't expect it to be as bad as it is, but didn't you always expect it to be a brain-dead blockbuster? I know I sure did.

With people dying in the streets of Iran this useless waste of space called for a boycott of a summer movie????

I wish Don would post here again.

The only real hero is Michael Bay, I guess.

I bought tickets, then changed them to something else after I found out about the controversial elements and the claim by more than half who saw it, that it was a horrible piece of shit.

(during a spiritual awakening)

From Murphy's forum:

I've never heard of night-blindness as a black stereotype. Hm.

Apparently they hated horror movies.

To my knowledge, K&O are very busy dudes. Writing and producing Star Trek, starting up their production company, Fringe, and TF2 all while the strike was either looming or going on.

That said, this sounds an awful lot like damage control on their own behalf to come out of it smelling as rosy as they can. It's rarely a single cause. It's a lot of things going on at once. Bay's clout. A packed workload. So many stages of iterations that need approval/disapproval. People not wanting to speak up, hoping someone else would. Who knows?
I simply don't understand how someone can still be this blind.

Directors like Bay and Lucas are surrounded by so many 'yes' men, they'd literally have to have their CG creations walking around barefoot in tatty overalls, saying 'Yes massa, suh' and eating CG fried chicken and watermelon before anyone would THINK of saying something. And even then, they'd probably keep their mouths shut, knowing that Bay would ultimately get blamed and there would be no consequences.

Night-Blind is one badass black superhero. He takes care of shit during the day while Batman sleeps.

Didn't they mention the night-blindness thing in GI Jane? When they were all sitting in the water waiting to be picked up.

Bay better man up for this. If Tom Kenney gets any more flack for "his improvs taking a life of their own" it could seriously damage his career in cartoons. Which is absurd and insane. That man is nice as hell, always willing to take time out for fans and even the idea that Bay didn't have control over the script or the actors is comical at best.

I'm sure that in Kurtzman and Orci's original script Skids and Mudflap were written as non-race specific racial stereotypes.

Orlando from CRANK is one of the twins. That makes it not racist. He was in CRANK.

Black people being unable to see in the dark is a stereotype? Do people also rag on them for exhaling carbon dioxide?

Well, as screenwriters, once production starts their job is pretty much over, correct?

Bay, as director, would have final say of what goes up on the screen, including bringing in other writers for rewrites.

I can't see how you can fault a pair of screenwriters, when writers have the least amount of power or say-so on a movie.

When it comes to screenwriters' jobs being over during production, that really depends on the production. Some productions (especially ones like TF2 where the script is being made up on the go) keep the writers around.

But if the strike went on during the production, K&O wouldn't be able to do anything in regards to the script. So they wouldn't be there.

In terms of screenwriters, K&O are pretty powerful though. I am pretty sure one of the main reasons they didn't/couldn't do anything about the twins was because they were too swamped with their own stuff. It's why they brought Kruger on as a co-writer (or so they say).

I'm sure you're right; but on a movie directed by Michael Bay and produced by Don Murphy, the writers are the low man on the totem pole. I'm pretty sure if even Megan Fox wanted a rewrite of her character and bring her own guy on board, the studio would accommodate her.

Does Murphy have much input?
I remember when the first Transformers came out, Bay posted something about how he'd never really talked "creatively" with Murphy.

The way I'm reading that post, it sounds like Orci is saying that Bay came up with the Twins when he took Orci, Kurtzman, and Kruger's 20-page outline and fleshed it out into a 60-page scriptment during pre-production.

Yeah, I kind of misread Orci's post at AICN: Harry had been suggesting that third writer Ehren Kruger might be responsible for the twins, and Orci said that it wasn't him. But he did then go on to suggest that they came up in Bay's expansion of the 20-page treatement.

Anyone else get the feeling that someone probably did speak up and object to the twins only to be told to "Fuck off!" by Bay?

Just like Affleck's story about how he asked Bay, "Wouldn't it be easier for the oil drillers to teach astronauts how to drill oil?" only to have Bay respond with, "Shut up."

He was actually told to "Shut the fuck up".

Funny because multiple actors from Armageddon have worked with him again. Affleck was in Pearl Harbor while Buscemi and Duncan were in his first non-Jerry outing The Island. Shit, even Fichtner came back to the prick in Pearl Harbor. Willis still wishes death upon him though.

Hahaha... where is my head today?

As for actors coming back... It's damned good money.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/tr...ws.php?id=8443

The movie was an abortion, and the twins generated not a single laugh, but this all seems like much ado about nothing.

If the twins had been two brainless white trash illiterate rednecks (which I, living in Kansas can attest do exist in terrifying numbers), nobody would say a peep. The problem with this whole controversy is such: illiterate 'gangsta" morons like the twins do exist, though whether it is tasteful or not to crack jokes about people like that is a debate for another day. Anybody who lives in a city and goes out much can attest to this (I invite you to travel some of the more run down areas of Kansas City, MO if you doubt me), just as I can attest to the fact that Larry The Cable Guy, only with an even smaller IQ and literacy level, exists as well. This isn't a racial thing, people like the twins exist in various forms amongst every race on earth, my own being far from an exception. Be offended that the movie cost enough money to double the pay for half the teachers in America, not that it makes fun of a segment of society that much like its redneck brethren begs to be made fun of and stereotyped.

If the twins walked around going "Shooooooonuff, Massah Optimus!", then I could understand the uproar, but as it is it's people wasting valuable time thinking, reading, and writing about a movie that isn't worth the effort to begin with. Really all it does is cause people who would normally be smart enough not to see the movie go see it just to see if it really is as vile and racist as the film geek sites say it is. All that does it benefit Bay, Murphy, and lead to more of the same.

Just because someone is a nice guy, doesn't mean he can't be a racist. The problem here is that we as a culture have singled out racists as the worst of the worst (second only to child-molesters) and thus when we hear racist, in our head we think "monster".

My aunts and uncles are all racist. They're also super nice, awesome people. They just grew up in a different world than I did.

Tom Kenny WAS on Mr. Show, which had like NO black people.

After today nobody will give a shit. The Michael Jackson news cycle will outlast this movie.

It's funny the people saying not to be offended by the twins all do it the same way by saying "be offended by this instead"...

At the end of the day, this abomination is just plain offensive for so many different reasons that here really is not point trying to pin point just which part is the most fucked up...

What a bunch of fucking idiots on that board and Donny "two chins" Murphy(as they called him on aicn) is a fucking idiot too. The fact this fat cunt allowed Bay to put out this drivel is a testament to his failed skills as a producer. This guy was punched by Tarantino, he produced league of extraordinary gentlemen. fuck him.

I liked the first film, it was an actual movie. If no one can see the difference in quality or medium then that's sad.

As they're robots I'm curious how their "race" will be handled in foreign markets. Like in Japan, if they want to do a slacked jaw yokel then they go with an Okinawa accent as everyone in Japan associated that with backwater stupidity.

So are these two going to sound like idiots from Okinawa or will they go with a traditional "Yakuza" voice or will they go with a straight up "Japanese trying and failing to sound like a black person."

I mean looking at them and with the one having the grill I do think "wow that's racist" but what if he didn't have the gold tooth and they sounded like Cletus? I've known plenty of white morons with big ears and heavy brows.

I haven't seen the movie and will only see it when I can be assured a good beer and a follow up quality film so I can't take part in a great deal of the discussion but I do wonder if part of the problem is our own latent racism seeing the stereotypes where the animators meant to only show stupidity (and a heavy brow and big ears and buck teeth are universal animator code for idiot).

I think it'll play.

Didn't know this - any confirmation or more info?

Willis has gotten candid over the years about his work. He called The Last Boyscout a "silly fucking movie" and said that he loved the cast of Armageddon but hated Bay. Basically called him a prick.

Willis is turning into my kinda crazy as he gets older.

Willis ripped Bay when he was doing Talkbacks and Q&As on AICN to promote Live Free Or Die Hard.

Didn't Bay respond that he had no idea what Willis was talking about as they had just been friendly together at a party. Ah, Hollywood!

Bay stated on The Rock commentary that Willis tried to direct the movie (Armageddon)...Willis has a history of trying to shadow direct.

Are you saying Bay said, "Watchoo talkin' bout, Willis?"

Racism is in this guy's blood!

Did anyone get offended by zee mad german doctor Decepticon?


No?


yet the 2 idiot bots who act like wanna be white-boys-gangsters (bro fisting and all) and had faces that looked like a cross between Johnny 5, various Gremlins, What's-his-face from the Goonies and Old B.O.B. from the Blackhole, cause all this fuss? what the hell?