History Creator / MichaelBay

Around the time ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'' rolled around he gained a very vocal {{hatedom}}, it seems for mostly the same reasons. The fact that every film has been a substantial hit (although ''Film/TheIsland'' earned significantly less than expected) seems to have made the hatedom angrier. If you look over his interviews, especially for ''Transformers'', you'll see that he is more than aware of it, and even makes [[SelfDeprecation fun of]] [[AdamWesting the fact]].

But his [[PrimaDonnaDirector aggressive directing style]] and occasional {{jerkass}} behavior has earned him some enemies. People like Creator/BruceWillis, Creator/ScarlettJohansson, Creator/MeganFox (who [[GodwinsLaw compared him]] to [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler]] and UsefulNotes/{{Napoleon|Bonaparte}} in an interview) and Kate Beckinsale (who claimed that Bay made her feel "ugly" on the set of ''Film/PearlHarbor'') have spoken out against Bay and refuse to work with him again.

In 2008, possibly to hype ''VideoGame/{{Postal}}'', [[SmallNameBigEgo Uwe Boll]] called out Bay (among others) for his supposed lack of talent (at least from Boll's point-of-view) while insisting he's "the only real genius in the whole fucking business." Bay's [[http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27387&postcount=2 response]] qualifies as his own personal SugarWiki/CrowningMomentOfAwesome.

** Notably, during the making of the second Transformers film, one of the computers melted while trying to animate [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Devastator]]. [[http://www.allspark.com/content/view/5201/28/ See here.]] Also they needed like, 4 terabytes of memory to store the data for Devastator. AwesomenessIsVolatile indeed.

* ChivalrousPervert: He's known for his use of [[MsFanservice attractive women]] in his films but according to some sources, during the filming of ''Film/TheIsland''. Scarlett Johansson insisted on going topless but Michael Bay rejected this idea.

* EverybodySmokes: Averted. Bay ''hates'' smoking and you'll rarely see anyone smoking in his films. PearlHarbor, set during a time when smoking was much more common, doesn't show anyone smoking. If you do see someone smoking in one of his films, chances are they're a JerkAss, CorruptCorporateExecutive, ObstructiveBureaucrat, or all three.

[[quoteright:350: http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Michael_Bay_6938.png]]

'''His films to date:'''

* [[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dora-explorer-movie-works-nick-stoller-1051195 A currently unnamed live action Dora The Explorer film]] (2019)

** In ''Film/MysteryMen'', he plays the leader of The Frat Boys (his line: "Dude, can we bring the brewskis?"), who are all killed by the movie's BigBad, ForTheEvulz.

Some men just want to see the world go boom.

** He may just be prickly with actors. The crews who've worked on his films are full of praise for him. {{Moviebob}} [[https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/394061294178795520 says that they speak]] [[https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/394061524089577472 of him]] like UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar, a general who would rather fight on the frontline with his men.

* ConceptVideo: His video for "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)", by MeatLoaf, features Loaf and Dana Patrick as a motorcycle-riding ''Literature/BeautyAndTheBeast''.

** For the movies themselves, both ''BadBoys'' films.

* OddlyNamedSequel2ElectricBoogaloo: Has a habit of making sequels with elaborate names [[ClicheStorm filled with overused words]]. Film/BadBoys2 was an aversion.

* GodwinsLaw: MeganFox compared him to [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler]] in an interview, although in the dictator sense than anything else.

** He may just be prickly with actors. The crews who've worked on his films are full of praise for him. {{Moviebob}} [[https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/394061294178795520 says that they speak]] [[https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/394061524089577472 of him]] like [[Creator/GaiusJuliusCaesar Julius Caesar]], a general who would rather fight on the frontline with his men.

'''Michael Benjamin Bay''' (born February 17, 1965) is an American movie director. He's known for an incredibly energetic direction style that some claim is impossible to follow, while a lot of other filmgoers don't seem to mind.

* CreatorBacklash:
** He admitted that ''Revenge of the Fallen'' deserved some of the hate it got. Consequently he put more work in trying to avoid what had been criticized in it in ''Dark of the Moon''.
** Subverted with ''Armageddon''. In an interview with ''Miami Herald'', he said "I will apologize for Armageddon", and explained how being forced to film the whole in 16 weeks caused the crew's performance to suffer, but later added on his website's forum that his words had been taken out of context and he actually was proud of the movie, despite the work he didn't get to finish.

* DoingItForTheArt:
** Say what you will about how much Bay loves explosions and chase scenes, but he makes them look ''good''; he's commented he does such stunts for real because it wouldn't look as good if he used CG or models, and for the same reason he doesn't like greenscreen work. In the first ''Transformers'' film, he accidentally launched a car into the third story of a building while filming Bumblebee's return to the battle in the tow truck, and he actually got a bus driving on the highway and blew it in two for the scene of Bonecrusher skating through it. When it came to making Transformers 3 a [[UsefulNotes/ThreeDMovie 3-D film]], he refused to work with anyone besides the best. In other words, the same team from ''Film/{{Avatar}}''.
** He initially didn't want to do the ''Transformers'' film, because he didn't want to just make a two-hour toy commercial. It wasn't until Spielberg talked him into the [[ABoyAndHisX A Boy And His Car]] angle and he familiarized himself with the franchise's history and mythology that he agreed to do the movie.
** ''Film/PainAndGain'' was Bay's pet project that he'd been trying to get off the ground for years because he loved the story behind it.
* EnforcedMethodActing: Whenever possible he gets the actors to do the big shots in the middle of all the explosions. The Scorponok sand explosion; told them to not stop running no matter what. Sam holding onto a statue on the edge of a building, had Shia [=LaBeouf=] strapped in 30 stories up. He admits he antagonized Megan Fox during the scene where she hacks up Frenzy with a demolition saw, because she was so timid about it.

* FanNickname: His SignatureStyle is called "Bayhem".
* FollowTheLeader: Bay admitted that his quick-cutting style was to bring more energy to the relatively low budget ''BadBoys'', which couldn't afford the same scale of actions sequences his later movies would offer. He also said that since then action movies have become more like his style and sometimes include ''even more'' cuts than even he would do.

* OldShame: Michael Bay isn't too fond of ''Transformers 2''. Bay has also stated that for ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'', claiming ExecutiveMeddling was responsible for some of the flaws: he only had a limited timeframe to do the special effects and would have had a different third act (although [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/apr/24/michael-bay-no-apology-armageddon he did insist that he was not apologizing for the movie, and that stories claiming so were misquoting him]]).

* OneOfUs: He is a bit of a geek, even saying his [[http://movies.about.com/od/transformers/a/transfrmmb61707.htm love of anime]] influenced how he made the ''Transformers'' films. He also wasn't a fan of ''Transformers'' until Hasbro gave him a rundown of the series (even saying no-one has been thinking of giant robots more than him).

* ShootTheMoney: Wherever his movies are filmed, he ensures that they look good. In the ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' commentary he mentioned that the "Megatron on ice" set cost the production 1.5 million and he made the effort to film there as much as possible. He mentioned stories of other directors who come in on similarly expensive locations and drop half the scenes it was built for.

* AmericaSavesTheDay: He uses this a lot--as noted below, he likes the US Military, and they like him because they always look good in his movies. One exception is ''Film/TheRock'' which was a major aversion--Sean Connery Saves The Day instead. A much bigger aversion also occurs in ''13 Hours'' where American reinforcements are far too little and too late, which was true according to the real-life attack on Benghazi.

* ''ThirteenHoursTheSecretSoldiersOfBenghazi'' (2016)

* ''13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi'' (2016)

* SignatureStyle: Popcorn movies that involve StuffBlowingUp, Military porn, slapstick and broad-appeal humor (though he occasionally forsakes this), polished technical cinematography, sex appeal, and large scope, high energy action sequences SmashCut with [[ActionFilmQuietDramaScene easy to overlook quiet drama scenes]].

-->--[[http://robotchicken.wikia.com/wiki/Michael_Bay_Presents:_Explosions! A sketch from]] ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken''

Bay got interested in action films when [[EstablishingCharacterMoment he set firecrackers on a train set, filmed it with his mom's camera, and got grounded]] - an approach which seems to have continued into many of his higher budget movies even today. As a teenager he was a clerk for Lucasfilm in the early '80s, and worked on ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk''. [[ItWillNeverCatchOn He thought it would suck]], but ate his words when he saw the final product. That got him interested in directing.

* BadBoss: If BruceWillis is to be believed, he's hard to work for.

* DoingItForTheArt

* FanNickname: His SignatureStyle is called "Bayhem."

* GenreSavvy: He ''knows'' that no matter what he does or how hated his movies are going to be, they'll be commercial successes anyways. In other words, he ''knows'' that people LoveToHate him. The exception to this is ''The Island'' which was less than successful to say the least.
** In fact, Creator/RogerEbert (not usually Bay's biggest fan, repeatedly saying that he is disappointed that Bay stopped making "real movies") said in his review that the main problem with ''The Island'' was that Bay seemed to be PlayingAgainstType trying to make a more cerebral movie and that the movie reflects Bay as not really enjoying it. He essentially admitted that while he might not always like Bay's movies, they at least usually conveyed Bay's own sense of sincerity, fun, and belief in the RuleOfCool.

* MadeOfExplodium: A ''big'' fan of StuffBlowingUp. He even parodies this.
-->"Awesome barbecue!" '''*BOOM!*''' "Awesome pool!" '''*BOOM!'''

* OldShame: Michael Bay isn't too fond of Transformers 2. Bay has also stated that for ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'', claiming ExecutiveMeddling was responsible for some of the flaws: he only had a limited timeframe to do the special effects and would have had a different third act (although [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/apr/24/michael-bay-no-apology-armageddon he did insist that he was not apologizing for the movie, and that stories claiming so were misquoting him]]).

* OneOfUs: He is a bit of a geek, even saying his [[http://movies.about.com/od/transformers/a/transfrmmb61707.htm love of anime]] influenced how he made the ''Transformers'' films. He also wasn't a fan of ''Transformers'' until Hasbro gave him a rundown of the series (even saying no one has been thinking of giant robots more than him).

* TheOneThingIDontHateAboutYou: Even Ebert acknowledged that Bay's work represents some of the most visually stunning and technically polished cinematography in modern film. Ebert gave, and many critics continue to give, a strange impression of YouCouldHaveUsedYourPowersForGood: That is, they wouldn't be so bothered by Bay if he actually were a bad director. Its the fact that a talented one willfully chooses to create unapologetic popcorn movies that drives them nuts.

* UncleTomfoolery: The ''{{Film/Transformers}}'' movies had some of this but WordOfGod (from Bay and the voice actors) says that Skids and Mudflap were meant to be wannabe gangsters, not this trope.

''[[MundaneMadeAwesome Awesome]] [[TheStinger STINGER!]]'' '''[[MadeOfExplodium *BOOM!*]]'''

%%* HonorBeforeReason: '''The''' defining attribute of a Heroic Male in a Michael Bay movie.

%%* MsFanservice: He usually has more than one in each of his movies.