Transformers is the new AI
Or more specifically, it is the reverse of AI. In AI we root for the awesome Kubricky elements that ground the fantastic first act of the film, only to see them overwhelmed by Speilberg schmaltz. The first act of Transformers is the greatest kind of Spielberg schmaltz; a coming of age story about a girl, a boy, and his intelligent yet mysterious car. It is American Graffiti meets ET (in fact two of the scenes copy ET slavishly). It is also quite funny. And then it gets turned into a cliche action behemoth, with a rag-tag team of soldiers, hackers and teenagers saving the day despite the meddling of the government. The robots stop being alive and become nothing more than giant anthropomorphic weapons. The humor becomes nothing but in-jokes (”There really is more to them than meets the eye”) and robot scatology. I can still imagine the great movie this could have been. In fact, it looks like the writers did as well:
Our first draft centered almost exclusively on the kids. That draft represented the emotional heart of the movie. Much of its structure stayed, but when it came time to do the second draft, we realized we needed to bolster it with the disaster-movie paradigm, following a couple other stories and showing that the Transformers arriving is a global phenomenon. The second draft was much more about the action.