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Josh Spiegel: As Daron said: explosions, explosions, explosions. And, since we're talking about a 150-minute movie, that's a lot of explosions. I think that plenty of other directors could've been successful with the franchise, though. As ridiculous (to me, at least) as the premise is, other blockbuster directors (a J.J. Abrams or Steven Spielberg) could have easily made the series popular and enjoyable, as opposed to what this series is now: just popular.

Scott Lumley: He's has big successes before. But in this case I think it's his style of film making that serves him so well. He knows what the people want, and he gives it to them, with as few thought provoking complications as possible. He may very well be the McDonalds of film makers. But if that's true, then he also gets the sign that says "Over XX Billion served!" And that is not a small thing.

Jason Lee: 100% agree with Scott. It'd be interesting to see Morgan Spurlock film a documentary where he watches nothing but Michael bay films for a month.

Sean Collier: Michael Bay represents a guarantee to a certain type of film fan. He promises an action film that will not challenge, that will not require much involvement on the part of the audience, and will provide spectacle and entertainment on the most basic level. It's sad that this works, but it does. Unfortunately, there's still a large portion of the audience that would prefer not to think, and Bay is their savior.

David Mumpower: Rather than deride him for his flaws, the easy lay-up on movie sites at the moment, I'd like to take this in a different direction. What Michael Bay understands is commercialism. Perhaps that's because he came up through commercials. But probably not. Anyway, what even the harshest critics of Michael Bay must acknowledge is that he has an almost preternatural awareness of what audiences want from their movies. Daron touched on the fact that he isn't going to spend a lot of money for him and his kids to see a movie he is certain will disappoint. That's the crux of this whole discussion.

Bay has exceptional awareness of how people have certain expectations for these big tentpole titles. Call it cynical if you will, but his paint by numbers approach is time proven and constantly stable. During an early humping sequence in Transformers 2, oddly not one involving Hump Queen Megan Fox, I was forcibly reminded of the Shakespeare in Love joke about how every production needs a dog in order to make it more mainstream. There are a lot of people in this industry who are unwilling to take the low road, to angle for the cheap laugh. Bay has no such qualms. He's a mercenary, purely in this for the money. He has no pride about doing what is needed to get the average movie goer's money. If more of us showed Daron's discipline, he'd have to evolve, but about $200 million in five days shows that won't be happening any time soon. He learned his mistake with Pearl Harbor. He won't be angling for Oscar glory any time soon, because he is self-aware to recognize that is not who he is.

Jason Lee: While I don't disagree with your assessment of Bay's ability to "give 'em what they wanna watch," there is something sad about America's movie-going appetite for films that, almost everyone agrees, are schlocky and low in quality. This is why I appreciated Scott's analogy so much -- there's nothing wrong with McDonalds selling their food and certainly enough people buy and eat it. But at the same time, it doesn't make me happy that their nutritionally-deficient menu items are so popular (except for their sausage mcmuffin with egg . . . mmmm, I could eat those all day). Same for me with Bay (but without the mcmuffin).

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