Michael Bay: the Art of Ruining Someone's Childhood

Written by Ronald Stump
Monday April 30th, 2012

Michael Bay has received a lot of criticism lately in regards to his directing career. Such criticisms peeked with his Transformers trilogy centering on alien robot cars. In fact, just his name being attached to a project nowadays is foreboding as is the case with the upcoming reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...

 Without the Teenage or the Mutant...

This past March, Michael Bay made the huge mistake of forming a thought and then multiplied his mistake by expressing it. He revealed that the movie would be titled, simply, Ninja Turtles. The removal of not just one, but two essential adjectives from the franchise's title created a wave of disapproval that Michael Bay seems to enjoy surfing on. One long time fan expressed his anger at this lack of adjectives by saying, "What made me fall in love with the cartoon and comics as a kid was the fact that they were teenagers and that they were mutants. I had such an easy time relating to them, but how am I expected to relate to them now? I am neither a Ninja nor a Turtle! Bay, thanks for ruining my childhood, again. You suck!"

To shove the knife deeper into the hearts of many people's childhood he went on to express that the Turtles would be aliens, yes aliens. When asked why he wanted to depict them in this way Bay commented, "First off, I don't think there is enough emphasis on aliens in today's film industry. Aliens are freaking awesome! But instead we get a bunch of movies with people dressed up as wildlife fighting crime. Also aliens blow stuff up, regular turtles do not. When is the last time you saw a turtle, teenage or otherwise, do anything remotely cool? Its simple really. I mean a movie is just crap if crap isn't blowing up in the background. Don't get me wrong I love crap as much as the next guy, but only when its being blown up, and that's what aliens do. That's why I'm making alien Ninja Turtles."

Michael Bay's Childhood.

We went on to ask Bay what he thought about the comments that he is ruining people's childhood. He had this to say "My childhood sucked, why? Because stuff wasn't blowing up! People need to get over their childhood because if they really think about it their childhood sucked too. You couldn't drive, you peed the bed until you were 12, your teachers hated you, kids made fun of your last name, calling you 'Gay Bay' and your parents didn't love you. The only thing that made you happy was blowing stuff up. So that's what I'm doing here."

Without being asked another question he continued to rant, "I want to liberate people from their awful childhood that they have convinced themselves to believe was awesome. I do this by first basing my movies off of things people loved as kids, like Transformers. Then I exaggerate the idiotic aspects of those beloved things. Next, I recreate the way kids think by making each idea expressed in my movie have no logical connection with that of the next. I then proceed to make each character one dimensional and shallow like humanity. Add in a awesome rock song, thrown in some hot women, rotate the camera around the characters for no conceivable reason, and there you have it. Consider yourself freed."

Bay finished off the interview by saying "You're welcome!"

Step 1,4 and 6 of ruining your childhood depicted here.