Except you have marketing successfully polish a turd and sell it to the mass market audience. I don't hate Bay's movies because they are not exact copies of the G1 cartoon, I hate them because I find the heroes unsympathetic, I find the villains dull and underdeveloped, I find the action incoherent, I find most of the characters to be stereotypical and a few to be offensive and if these problems were in Winter Solider, Days of Future Past or Guardians of the Galaxy had the same problems, I wouldn't like them either. Its like assuming the people who didn't like Jar Jar Binks had the problem and Lucas did not deserve criticism for that character.
Every film has marketing, lots of films have even better marketing than the TF brand, that doesn't stop them from under performing or outright bombing. Takes more than marketing to explain the consistency in the the TF phenomena. Battleship for example. As for why you hate the bay films, I'm not sure where anyone claimed you hate them because they aren't G1. But if we must go there then it's simple; all those reasons you just described, begin with the letter "I" for a reason. That being, your opinion as to what you 'find'. That doesn't actually speak to what the films actually do, or do for general audiences. What's more, I personally find it odd that you don't 'find' the same problems in Guardians of the Galaxy cause I seemingly do:
-Unsympathetic heroes(aHoles if you will, relish killing and sardonic pranks)
-Dull and underdeveloped villains(that's a new one for them)
-Stereotypical characters(slack jaw man eating blue space hillbillies aside)
-Offensive(lol, not even sure what that means theses days but probably)
But the thing is, that's all my opinion. Means diddly squat apparently when it comes to the actual merits of the film and that of the GA's measure.
They are tons of great movies that did not make a lot of money, are we to say that the more successful movie is better then the well reviewed movie that made a poor showing at the box office? Is Shawshank Redemption a bad movie, because it didn't make a mint at the box office?
This is why I hate the success equals quality argument, it promotes a commercialized mass market culture, were the focus group instead of the artist is king. I don't think success in the mass market is an instant sign that something is good, because it is easy to wag the dog.
Frankly I think these movies succeed due to Transformers name, rather then Bay's direction. If these movies didn't have brand name recognition, they would not succeed to the same extent, I don't believe in giving Bay a prize for his sloppy work, just because he lucked into the ultimate nostaglia franchise with a built in fan base.
This is you doing the strawman again. Never said that success argues for your definition of 'quality'. If you read my post I specifically said success argues for entertainment, appeal, accessibility... And how that is the measure of a quality block buster as I define it. That doesn't mean a film is technically better than Shawshank, that means it's more accessible and entertaining to the masses which I would imagine is the aim of many an expensive tent pole. Quality as defined by intent! So no, and let me be clear so there is no mistake, Shawshank isn't a 'bad movie' because it didn't make mint.
Luck? Nostalgia?
You do know that brands like GIjoe and Ninja Turtles and even Hulk and Superman and Heman....all have the same and often times greater advantage of branding(80's or otherwise) than Transformers had before bay got his hands on it? Hell Jurassic Park has a bigger brand right now than TF did in 2007 and this next JP reboot isn't some sure fire hit simply because of that. Neither was Robocop or Conan or Terminator... Sorry but this pretty tired excuse of branding power is just that and nothing more; an excuse. He's had the same advantage and less then plenty of other creators and TF's continued success(considering it's starting point) is rivaled by almost nothing else.
