Cracked: 4 Reasons Transformers 4 May Prevent a US-Chinese War
Who knew that big-budget crap-pop culture could do so much good?
But there was one clear message in Transformers 4: Hollywood loves the s*** out of China, because China loves Hollywood more than anyone else in the world. Films like Looper and Iron Man 3 did a decent amount of Eastern pandering, but something like half of Transformers: Age of Mechanical Dinosaurs takes place in Hong Kong. It’s no surprise that, while enjoying decent success in the U.S., Transformers is a freaking monster overseas.
Transformers 4 has been so successful, in fact, that we’re starting to suspect Michael Bay’s secret goal might be to avert World War III via dumb robot movies (his primary goal remains “make all of the money in the universe by blowing things up and hating women”). You laugh, but he’s doing more for Chinese-American relations than Richard Nixon ever did.