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	<title>Complex Blog &#187; Michael Bay</title>
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	<description>Buy.  Collect.  Obsess.  The original buyer's guide for men.</description>
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		<title>Ayo! Scott: &#8220;Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen&#8221; Falls Short</title>
		<link>http://www.complex.com/blogs/2009/06/24/ayo-scott-transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-falls-short/</link>
		<comments>http://www.complex.com/blogs/2009/06/24/ayo-scott-transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-falls-short/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:07:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>justinm</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Megan Fox]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael Bay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shia LaBeouf]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Transformers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.complex.com/blogs/?p=41907</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Complex's resident film critic has some serious questions about Michael Bay's latest action-packed blockbuster.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.complex.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/transformersrev_lead.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn.complex.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/transformersrev_lead.jpg" alt="transformersrev_lead" title="transformersrev_lead" width="625" height="456" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-41908" /></a><br />
<font size="1"><em>Optimus Prime and the Trans-gendered robots are back!</em></font></p>
<p>Whether it&#8217;s movies or dome, <strong>Ayo! Scott</strong> enjoys good summer fluff. Both go down a little something like this: Ayo! reclines, Ayo! dumbs out to the action, Ayo! shifts around a couple times before an explosive climax, Ayo! promptly leaves, Ayo! repeats in another theater. Ayo! doesn&#8217;t ask for a hell of a lot, which is why it&#8217;s so baffling that <strong>Michael Bay</strong>, master of the mindless blockbuster, and his new sequel, <strong>Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen</strong>, failed to pleasure him.</p>
<p><span id="more-41907"></span>When Ayo! goes to see a mindless movie, he wants his brain to power down. Achieving such an effortless viewing experience requires that the filmmaker really put their brain to work, but it appears that Bay was operating in a minestrone-like vegetative state while making <em>Transformers 2</em>. Despite his best attempts to not question anything about a silly movie in which good (Autobot) and bad (Decepticon) alien robots battle each other on Earth, a baffled Ayo! was forced to ask questions: Why would an advanced alien race posing as vehicles take on the weakest characteristics of humanity, like emotion and ignorance? Why, despite their extraterrestrial weaponry and transformative technology, would they fight with their fists? Why is the action, the main focus of the movie, so jumbled a mess of machine parts that you can hardly tell what&#8217;s going on? Why is Megan Fox doing detail work on the side of a motorcycle by seductively straddling it? (OK, Ayo! didn&#8217;t actually have a problem with that, but the woman in the adjacent seat who caught him fondling himself, as Bay no doubt intended, may have.) </p>
<p>Of course, the Transformers universe is a fantasy land, so perhaps things don&#8217;t need to make any sense, but we live in the real world, so Bay might have thought twice about using racist caricatures for minor laughs. <a href="http://www.complex.com/blogs/2009/06/23/is-transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-racist/">As Complex pointed out yesterday</a>, Skids and Mudflap, two jive-talkin&#8217; &#8220;hip-hop&#8221; Autobot twins, slap box and snap on each other uncontrollably and reveal they&#8217;re illiterate like CGI alien robot versions of black people in <em>The Birth of a Nation</em>. Ayo! isn&#8217;t here to police ignorance (he&#8217;s usually here to promote it) but this violation is glaring like the light reflecting off of Skids&#8217;s crooked gold bucked tooth. Considering that no fluff movie needs to run two and a half hours long, Ayo! wonders why nobody urged Bay to cut them out of the film before people forget all he did for black people in movies with <em>Bad Boys</em> and <em>Bad Boys II</em> and he becomes known as Michael Kay-kay-kay. </p>
<p>Whew. Ayo!&#8217;s brain is fried just writing about all this shit. This is not what he had in mind when he sat down for some fluff. Don&#8217;t make the same mistake as Ayo!: go for some dome instead. Check the <strong>Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen</strong> trailer below to decide if you&#8217;ll fall in line for this clunker.<br />
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		<title>Is &#8220;Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen&#8221; Racist?</title>
		<link>http://www.complex.com/blogs/2009/06/23/is-transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-racist/</link>
		<comments>http://www.complex.com/blogs/2009/06/23/is-transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-racist/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:05:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>justinm</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Movies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael Bay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mudflap]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[racism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[racist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Skids]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.complex.com/blogs/?p=41639</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The blockbuster's sequel features a pair of ignorant, jive-talkin' robots with gold teeth. Has Michael Bay gone too far?]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.complex.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/trans_skidsmudflap.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn.complex.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/trans_skidsmudflap.jpg" alt="trans_skidsmudflap" title="trans_skidsmudflap" width="625" height="510" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-41673" /></a><br />
<em><font size="1">Autobot twins Skids and Mudflap strike a b-boy pose during their minstrel show.</font></em></p>
<p>According to a <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003986450" target="_blank">leaked memo</a>, director <strong>Michael Bay</strong> is pissed off at Paramount Pictures for not putting enough hype behind his new sequel, <em>Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen</em>. Having seen it, we can&#8217;t help but wonder if Paramount is keeping quiet because his flick about warring alien robots transforms into a vehicle for racism. </p>
<p>As if black people didn&#8217;t catch a bad enough one from the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C9JX6VRjn0" target="_blank">Jar Jar Binks character</a> in <em>Star Wars Episodes I-III</em>, Bay&#8217;s Autobot twins, the &#8220;black&#8221;-voiced <strong>Skids</strong> and <strong>Mudflap</strong>, are the 2009 version of the <em>Amos n&#8217; Andy</em> minstrel show. It&#8217;s hard to believe a big-money director would show his ass like this in what projects to be a much-watched blockbuster, but maybe he&#8217;s gotten too comfortable hanging out with his boy <strong>Black-Ty</strong>. Whatever the rationale, it&#8217;s clear that Bay is violating. How can we be so certain? <strong>Check out 7 reasons why <em>Transformers 2</em> might be racist&#8230;</strong><br />
<span id="more-41639"></span></p>
<blockquote><p><font size="3"><strong>#1:</font></strong> &#8220;Skids&#8221; and &#8220;Mudflap&#8221; sound suspiciously like &#8220;skid-marks&#8221; and &#8220;mud people.&#8221; Tell us how you really feel, cracker!</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>
<font size="3"><strong>#2:</strong></font> Skids not only has old-school Raekwon bucked teeth, <a href="http://host.trivialbeing.org/up/transformers-20090528-head-skids.jpg" target="_blank">one of them is actually gold</a>! We&#8217;re assuming the rope chains and 40s for the action figures are sold separately.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p><font size="3"><strong>#3:</strong></font> The twins constantly fight and snap on each other in inappropriate situations, like in the sacred tomb of the Primes. Sigh. Black robots just don&#8217;t know how to behave in public, do they?</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>
<font size="3"><strong>#4:</strong></font> Skids and Mudflap refer to Leo, the Latino college student played by Ramon Rodriguez, as a &#8220;shrimp taco.&#8221; All black robots gotta be ign&#8217;ant though, right? That&#8217;s just like the white devil to put his secret racist thoughts into the mouths of black robots.
</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>
<font size="3"><strong>#5:</strong></font> In the twins&#8217; vehicular incarnation, they&#8217;re flashy compact racing cars. Black robots aren&#8217;t concerned about the safety and security of their loved ones? Family sedans aren&#8217;t &#8220;urban&#8221; enough for you?</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><font size="3"><strong>#6:</strong></font> The hip-hop jive that Skids and Mudflap spew comes from the mouth of WHITE voiceover comedian Tom Kenny, a.k.a. the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants. At least if Mike Epps was the one bamboozling, talking about &#8220;bustin&#8217; caps,&#8221; we could take solace in a black actor getting work.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><font size="3"><strong>#7:</strong></font> The twins make R. Kelly look like an advocate for literacy. When Shia LaBoeuf asks if the twins can read ancient glyphs, they nervously respond, &#8220;Read?! Nuh-uh&#8230;&#8221; &#8220;No, we don&#8217;t really do much readin&#8217;!&#8221; (<em><strong>watch the exchange below</strong></em>) Well, not only can we read, we can also read between the lines: <em>Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen</em> isn&#8217;t a blockbuster, it&#8217;s a black-buster!</p></blockquote>
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<p><font size="4"><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.complex.com/blogs/2009/06/23/5-megan-fox-scenes-youve-never-seen/">5 MEGAN FOX SCENES YOU&#8217;VE NEVER SEEN</a></strong></font></p>
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