‘Transformers: Age Of Extinction’ Is The Culmination Of Film As Commerce
By David Chen/June 27, 2014 1:00 pm EST
But maybe that’s okay. Because Transformers: Age of Extinction is still going to make a billion dollars worldwide. It’s the most Michael Bay film that Michael Bay ever Bay’ed. This film is the logical culmination of film as commerce. Let’s explore why.
The product placement is more egregious than ever - Shots of characters in distress take great pains to linger on logos of sponsoring brands, such as Cadillac. Stanley Tucci, while demonstrating the discovery of the new metallic element Transformium, uses it to form a pill-shaped Beats personal speaker, with the logo RIGHT in the audience’s face. An action scene culminates with a ton of Bud Light being spilled on the ground, which Mark Wahlberg takes a swig of for no reason whatsoever. This movie laughs at your previous attempts at product placement. It is the ne plus ultra of product placement. Age of Extinction doesn’t just practice product integration; it practices product visual assault. It takes no risks that you won’t see every brand that paid cash money to appear in this film, and it does so unapologetically and repeatedly.Parts of it are set in China for some reason - With China becoming an ever-larger market for films, it’s important for any film these days to do things that cater to the Chinese market. And what better way to do this than by having the film be partially set in China, and also partially financed by the China Movie Channel?
Look, I’m all for more Asian characters/actors/settings in films. But it’s doesn’t really serve the story if the primary Asian characters in the film have absolutely no discernible characteristics whatsoever, other than that they happen to know martial arts. Or if your characters show up in a Chinese apartment complex only to completely lay waste to it. (According to the film’s producer, the Chinese setting was integral to the film from conception).
So please, keep putting more Asian culture in movies, America. But, to quote Switch, “Not like this. Not like this.”
The Transformers films have made nearly $3 billion worldwide, but their merchandising has made over $7 billion. As with all the properties that came before Age of Extinction, this movie exists to sell toys. Having several of the key “characters” occupy over 80% of the marketing but less than 20% of the movie is a great way to demonstrate that fact unequivocally.
In his now-legendary speech on the state of cinema, Steven Soderbergh once lamented the gulf between “movies” and “cinema.” Discussing the economics that accentuate this distinction, Soderbergh remarked:
If there is such a thing as cinema as Soderbergh describes it, then Age of Extinction is a perfect distillation of anti-cinema. It posits that films no longer need a coherent plot, character development, or action scenes that have tension and stakes in order to be successful. That economic considerations no longer need to be hidden or subtle — they can be brazen and attention-grabbing. That excess in every respect (runtime, municipal destruction, manchild behavior) is not a vice, but a virtue.
Age of Extinction marks the most recent step in our journey to film-as-commerce. It will take in over a billion dollars at the box office, and many billions more in Dinobot action figure sales. And all we will be able to do is sit there and smile.
