Michael Bay & Paramount Wish ‘Transformers’ Was Shorter; Director Thinks It’s Not So Racist

Here’s an interesting note. According to Anne Thompson, even Michael Bay thinks “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is too long at 2 and 1/2 hours. The studio obviously feels that way (blockbusters should be short so they can be screened as many times as possible in a day).

“Michael Bay wishes he had one more week to edit the picture, which everyone, including him, agrees is too long. It could use a trim. Paramount’s new production chief Adam Goodman, who supervised the movie, asked Bay to cut it, but he wouldn’t, partly because they ran out of time.”

Also, they want “Transformers 2” stat, but in a different way. “Paramount wants another installment to go real soon, on a slightly smaller-scale.” But obviously Bay’s been talking about doing an all-together different, smaller-scale film.

As for the very valid comments about racism concerning the Skids and Mudflap — the modern Al Jolson, jive-talking “black robots” that have faces resembling monkeys, gold cap teeth and are illiterate minstrel, bumbling fools? (no, seriously). Bay’s mostly dismisses these comments when talking to USA Today.

“We’re just putting more personality in. I don’t know if it’s stereotypes — they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it.”

Throw the voice actor (Tom Kenny, the guy who voices “Spongebob Squarepants”) under the bus, nice move, Michael (though Reno Wilson who voices Mudflap is African American). He lays it on thick too. The parts were “kind of written but not really written, so the voice actors is when we started to really kind of come up with their characters.”

This quote is awesome too. “I purely did it for kids. Young kids love these robots, because it makes it more accessible to them.” Uhh, what the fuck is he trying to say there? It’s practically too white hot dangerous to touch [ed. kids love racist clowns].

He also adds not-so effectively to his excuse/response, “Listen, you’re going to have your naysayers on anything. It’s like is everything going to be melba toast? It takes all forms and shapes and sizes.”

Whatever you say, buddy. “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” currently has a dismal 22% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.