OVERARCHING POST-TRANSFORMERS THOUGHT

So, I watched Transformers for the first time and I continue to be confused by one thing.

Early in the movie, Josh Duhamel's character is shown interacting with his wife and baby daughter. I'm really confused by this scene; I find it completely unnecessary.

As a filmmaker, it is generally wise to establish relationships for characters at the outset of the movie so that later on, when they face almost certain disaster, you will care about them and want them to live.

However, we're talking about Josh Duhamel and that doesn't really apply.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are wildly attracted to Josh Duhamel and would want his character to live regardless of the character's actual background (we generally call these people "women"), and those who are merely watching the movie for the robot death matches, so who cares about Josh Duhamel's back story? (By the way, we generally call these people "men.")

So this leaves me with the thought that they gave Josh Duhamel's character a back story so that Josh Duhamel the actor would have something to fight for. It raises the stakes. If the stakes are higher, the acting becomes more fun as the actor devises methods for the character to achieve what they want, and the performance ultimately becomes more convincing.

However, this is Josh Duhamel we're talking about, and acting doesn't really apply. Do we EVER watch a movie with Josh Duhamel in it for the ACTING? It would distract from the beauty!

So, maybe they gave Josh Duhamel's character a back story so Josh Duhamel would continue under the delusion that he is a real actor and not just a pretty face.

Heh heh. That's kind of cute. It's like one big corporate movie-making fantasy world.