How Transformers and Michael Bay Shill for China (& Undercut Hong Kong)

Last updated on: March 15, 2024 at 8:57 am by Craig Detweiler

How Transformers and Michael Bay Shill for China (& Undercut Hong Kong) 2024-03-15T08:57:12-06:00 Craig Detweiler

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I was so happy to miss Transformers: Age of Extinction in theaters. Director Michael Bay engages in such an unrelenting assault on the senses. The cuts and crashes happen so fast and so frequently that audiences rarely have time to consider what is actually transpiring onscreen. Most viewers don’t care where Optimus Prime and the Autobots have come from or how Mark Wahlberg became an inventor in rural Texas with a Boston townie accent. We want to see metal crunch metal. This time they’ve even got fire-breathing Dinobots!

Yet Transformers’ pandering to product placement wrapped in a flag-waving package gets so wearisome. How could we not notice General Motors’ Camaros and Cadillacs cruising beside Old Glory, Bud Light’s aluminum blue bottles surviving collisions, and Victoria Secret ads adorning the un-demolished halves of double decker buses? Raising a twelve-year-old son, it seems somehow un-American to remove him from these endless commercials for Hasbro products that attack global filmgoers’ with such regularity. He quickly understood that in Michael Bay’s mathematics, three objectified assistants in black mini dresses is always preferable to one. He grasped how eight police vehicles with flashing lights and three helicopters usually signals trouble is on the way. We did not expect Transformers 4 to become an extended commercial for the central government of the People’s Republic of China, justifying their efforts to keep Hong Kong under control.

It is no secret that the Chinese government restricts the number of foreign (i.e. American) films which screen in their country. They may hold back movies like The Hunger Games that encourage audiences to question the government or engage in active resistance. Yet, the growth of the Chinese film market (projected to be the world’s largest by 2020) means that Hollywood studios cannot afford to alienate the central government. If a franchise like Transformers wants maximum exposure in Chinese theaters, it should not only include beauty shots of the People’s Republic of China, but also portray the government in the most positive light possible. This savage and masterful Honest Trailer for Transformers 4 calls attention to the unmotivated shifting of the plot from “Texas, USA” to Mainland China right around the two hour mark.

Who are the bad guys driving the absurd ‘plot’ to acquire more transformium? We enter the assembly line of KSI, an American tech company, run by a Steve Jobs’ like guru (Stanley Tucci) who is cooperating with a greedy, rogue CIA operative (Kelsey Grammar). It becomes clear that an American government official is the bad guy in this ‘drama,’ not the Chinese factories doing the American capitalists’ bidding.

The Americans’ local host, played by Chinese film star, Li Bingbing, drives them around Hong Kong in Guangzhou Auto’s Trumpchi sedan. In a feat of remarkable corporate synergy, the first Trumpchi cars are slated to arrive on US shores this year. Now, of course, Hollywood has been selling screen time and exporting American ideas and products for years. Turnabout is fair play. So what is different or offensive about figuring out how to breach the highly controlled Chinese film market with our products?

Two short scenes occurring near the two hour twenty minute mark popped out with their obvious acquiescing to communist party influence. As an alien spaceship starts sucking up cars and ships along Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay, a local official on a rooftop shouts, “We gotta call the central government for help.” We soon cut to Beijing, where the defense minister is told, “There’s a crisis in Hong Kong.” He doesn’t hesitate in declaring, “The Central Government will protect Hong Kong at all costs. We have fighter jets on the way.” These quick, seemingly innocuous lines say so much about the protests transpiring on the streets of Hong Kong.

While college students are sweating out their days blocking traffic in Kowloon, Hollywood is exporting the PRC government’s message of benevolence toward this ‘Special Administrative Region.’ Today, the police in Hong Kong tried to disperse the non-violent, democratic movement with sledgehammers and chainsaws. How long before the central government calls in those fighter jets employed to keep the peace in Transformers: Age of Extinction? Maybe it seems silly to talk about Hasbro robots amidst the Umbrella Revolution’s peaceful occupation. Until we recognize the ways in which the Hollywood studios have been coopted into shilling for Beijing, we may not understand why there is such a need for Hong Kong to fight for free elections. These brave students do not want to see their glorious city and the prospect of democratic elections ‘transformed’ by the People’s Republic of China.

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