Mark Davidson. The Writer.

Saw many movies. Two stand out: “Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen” and “Inside Deep Throat.”

Transformers 2: it was beyond bad. Horrible. Spectacular special effects, though. The part I liked? When that one blur of pixels attacked that other, same colored blur of pixels? Yeah… that was cool.

I’m not alone in the criticism. There’s a long line of … vocal detractors.

But really, this about “Inside Deep Throat”, the documentary ABOUT “Deep Throat.”

Deep Throat was shot in ‘72 on a budget of $22,000 and had a global take somewhere around 600M. Biggest. Return. Ever…. EVAR!!! Of course, there were all sorts of “accounting irregularities” and the mob was involved and… well… it was pretty much a mess.

There was a scene in the documentary where director/writer Jerry Girard explains how he convinced the producer, Lou Perry, to move ahead with the film. Jerry explained to Lou that his hook was that his protagonist, Linda Lovelace, had her… uh… “sexual organs” … uh… in the … uh… back of her mouth.

Producer Perry explodes “What the hell! That makes NO sense! People won’t go for that…”

Of course, Girard convinces Perry it’s a good idea and the rest is box-office history. Hell, box office gold, right?

I have to imagine that much the same conversation happened between Bay and his production team. THEM: “This makes NO sense!”  Bay “It’s GIANT F’ING ROBOTS! It doesn’t have to make sense!”

And… well. He was right.

As of this writing, T2 has grossed 832M worldwide.

Sooooo… why didn’t they just shoot them all with that rail-gun thing mounted on the ship…?

DON’T ANSWER THAT! No need. Just move along.

The backlash is fervent. Left and right, people feel cheated. But do ENOUGH people feel cheated? When the inevitable T3 comes out, will Bay give more of the same, or will he react to feedback and do something to resurrect the franchise. I don’t know.

Because when you have THAT big of a hook “Giant f**king robots!” do you REALLY need a story? Just like in Deep Throat… do you REALLY need that big of a story? Or does a woman with sex organs in her mouth carry the day?

Something to think about. Behold… the power of the hook.

M A R K