Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background

Monday, December 23rd, 2013 10:35PM CST

Categories: Movie Related News, People News
Posted by: Mindmaster Views: 55,747

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Media site The Daily Beast caught up with Mark Wahlberg to interview him on several pieces of his acting career. Of interest, included in the article is a couple snippets of his experience in Transformers: Age of Extinction. The article itself can be read here, while the Age of Extinction-related part of the interview is mirrored below:

TDB: With Transformers: Age of Extinction, did you agree to do that one for your kids?

MW: Well, it was exciting because it was the first time my kids were really interested in a movie I was doing. Any time they see me with a gun, like Contraband or Pain & Gain, they want to see that, too, but they can’t because of the language and all that stuff. But I loved working with Michael Bay, and I thought he had a really interesting way to make it new, different, and fresh. Plus, being in movies that have the potential to be hugely successful allows me to make smaller movies that I’m really passionate about.

TDB: What’s going to make this Transformers different? The first one was OK, but then the sequels were a total mess.

MW: It was a tighter script, and its own stand-alone thing. I think the emotional core of it, the human element, is going to be extremely powerful. It’s an ordinary man trying to do extraordinary things to save his daughter and keep her alive—and this boyfriend he didn’t know anything about. He’d had a child when he was in high school and his wife passed away, and the promise he’d made to her was that she wouldn’t date any boys until she graduated and that she’d be at the graduation—because we weren’t due to the pregnancy. So there’s an anchor to it and a realness to it that I like a lot.

...I hurt my neck in Hong Kong, and it hasn’t gotten better yet. I just woke up in the morning and couldn’t move, but still had to shoot 10 days of crazy action."

Credit(s): The Daily Beast

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Re: Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background (1537304)
Posted by Bounti76 on December 23rd, 2013 @ 10:45pm CST

"I think the emotional core of it, the human element, is going to be extremely powerful. It’s an ordinary man trying to do extraordinary things to save his daughter and keep her alive"

I really hope this is just him talking up the human element of it. I understand that a movie about giant space-alien robots is more relatable if humans are involved. I get that. But if it's at the expense of giving the 'bots personalities, then...just, no.

Re: Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background (1537305)
Posted by Rodimus Prime on December 23rd, 2013 @ 10:46pm CST

So this will be very human-centric as well?

I was hoping for an actual Transformers story...

Re: Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background (1537308)
Posted by MINDVVIPE on December 23rd, 2013 @ 10:58pm CST

Yeah, it's really about time you guys stop hoping for anything different. It's bay, it's as mainstream cinema as mainstream can get - Stick with the comics, and lower your expectations of the movie so low that they're pretty much non-existent.

Re: Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background (1537311)
Posted by njb902 on December 23rd, 2013 @ 11:04pm CST

I don't think we will get a bot centric movie for some time guys. The technology just doesn't exist yet for them to make a reasonably priced movie with the amount of cgi we all want.

Re: Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background (1537361)
Posted by Deathscythetransform on December 24th, 2013 @ 7:31am CST

njb902 wrote:I don't think we will get a bot centric movie for some time guys. The technology just doesn't exist yet for them to make a reasonably priced movie with the amount of cgi we all want.

there you go! finally someone understood the reality of this.

and don't forget: humans from G1, were an important part of the tf universe. has everyone forgotten about Spike, Sparkplug, Chip, Carly, Daniel, Dr. Arkeville, Marissa Fairborne and the others?

you guy all got sick of the human characters because of the kids from the Unicron Trilogy...
Now get over it.

and don't forget we are talking about Michael Bay.
He does what he wants.
Not what WE want.

remember, when he came to the franchise, he knew NOTING about transformers.
all it took was a tour in the hasbro factory and after an hour, he allowed himself to consider himself a real transformers headgeek...

we all know it takes more than that.

and a personnal note to the writer of the article:
Tf 1 was more than okay, and ROTF and DOTM were maybe a mess, but they fetched more money than you could ever count, dickhead!

Re: Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background (1537373)
Posted by #Sideways# on December 24th, 2013 @ 8:57am CST

Whereas I agree that a Transformer-based Transformer movie would be fantastic, and that making a human-centric story is rather disappointing, considering the fact that the third one seemed to pull off a lot of Transformers-centricity in the story, the fact remains that it is actually quite important to the overall scheme of things. Like adding in romance to a film or television show. I hate romance films, but if Steins;Gate, Fullmetal Alchemist, or NCIS, CSI, Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D., any other show on the market that is doing well at all didn't have that element in them, it would be a bland story. It adds in that extra element that really fleshes out the picture as a whole, and if the human element is done well in this film, I see it doing no different.

Re: Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background (1537383)
Posted by MINDVVIPE on December 24th, 2013 @ 9:28am CST

Deathscythetransform wrote:Tf 1 was more than okay, and ROTF and DOTM were maybe a mess, but they fetched more money than you could ever count, dickhead!

Money should never be a valid excuse for a bad movie (yes i know it means more money for figures we want, but still, its not a good reason to defend anything. It's like defending a shitty band just because its popular and makes a lot of money, or one of those po-mo art pieces of crap that goes for insane amounts of cash). Money made does not equal quality.

#Sideways# wrote: It adds in that extra element that really fleshes out the picture as a whole, and if the human element is done well in this film, I see it doing no different.

I agree with this. If done well, it can add fun/heart/depth to any story, as long as its cohesive and organic to the situation of the bigger, core story.

Re: Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background (1537409)
Posted by Poyguimogul on December 24th, 2013 @ 10:47am CST

OMG! MIND\/\/IPE's first post had me crackin' up! (Cuz it's so true)

My father is the one that got me into Transformers when it first came out in the 80's, He was a fan before I was. He got me Ironhide (which i couldn't transform well) and Optimus Prime. (which I could, until I left him in the yard and he got run over with a lawn mower.)

and I digress. When I was taken to see Transformers the Movie in the 80's with my father and brother, my Dad was actually not a fan of it. As much as he liked the story and the characters, the idea of Unicron was too big for him. Humans couldn't have a place in a world that big. Of course I didn't agree, but I do (now) understand that if there isn't something to connect to, you can get dislocated, and unable to be as much drawn in and immersed in the story as others.

And of course the first movie was the best! "A young punk with a little kid partner saving the world from a planet eating..." I mean, "A young man seeking a vehicle and and a sexual encounter is drawn into a world of giant transforming aliens"...What are we talking about again!?

Re: Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background (1537481)
Posted by SKYWARPED_128 on December 24th, 2013 @ 7:37pm CST

#Sideways# wrote:Whereas I agree that a Transformer-based Transformer movie would be fantastic, and that making a human-centric story is rather disappointing, considering the fact that the third one seemed to pull off a lot of Transformers-centricity in the story, the fact remains that it is actually quite important to the overall scheme of things. Like adding in romance to a film or television show. I hate romance films, but if Steins;Gate, Fullmetal Alchemist, or NCIS, CSI, Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D., any other show on the market that is doing well at all didn't have that element in them, it would be a bland story. It adds in that extra element that really fleshes out the picture as a whole, and if the human element is done well in this film, I see it doing no different.

QFT.

As for romance, certain stories actually don't need it. Take for instance, Ghost in the Shell. In both the manga and anime, there wasn't any visible element of romance, outside of Batou's implied attraction toward The Major, but that's more to illustrate the kind of sexual suppression that complete cyborgs suffer through.

That said, most action movies do benefit from romantic subplots, as it helps to flesh out the characters, making them more relate-able.

Re: Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background (1537494)
Posted by SlyTF1 on December 24th, 2013 @ 8:36pm CST

#Sideways# wrote:Whereas I agree that a Transformer-based Transformer movie would be fantastic, and that making a human-centric story is rather disappointing, considering the fact that the third one seemed to pull off a lot of Transformers-centricity in the story, the fact remains that it is actually quite important to the overall scheme of things. Like adding in romance to a film or television show. I hate romance films, but if Steins;Gate, Fullmetal Alchemist, or NCIS, CSI, Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D., any other show on the market that is doing well at all didn't have that element in them, it would be a bland story. It adds in that extra element that really fleshes out the picture as a whole, and if the human element is done well in this film, I see it doing no different.

You can use different elements to flesh a movie out. I hate any kind of romance in anything. It's the one thing I hated about the past TF movies. A human character with a massive amount of blood on his hands setting out to do the extraordinary to redeem himself would be infinitely more interesting. Hell, even just a regular soldier just following orders to blow up a bunch of Decepticons would hold my attention more.

Re: Mark Wahlberg Transformers: Age of Extinction Interview - Discusses Character's Background (1538509)
Posted by TurboMMaster on December 31st, 2013 @ 2:56am CST

Rodimus Prime wrote:So this will be very human-centric as well? I was hoping for an actual Transformers story...

I love how you people are upset because news that suggest something, that was kinda obvious...

Like after three Invasion Movies with stron "Humans are special" plot this was gonna to suprise someone =P~