The Chinese Communist Party Vs. The Decepticons.

SURE, MEGATRON MAY THINK HE'S TOUGH, BUT HE'S YET TO MEET THE PEOPLE'S COMMITTEE!

SURE, MEGATRON MAY THINK HE’S TOUGH, BUT HE’S YET TO MEET THE PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE!

Spoiler alert: I recently went to see Transformers 4: Age of Extinction, and wanted to write about a political aspect of it. In order to do that, I need to write about the plot, so if you don’t want to have that spoiled for you, stop reading NOW….

Still there? Grand. What I found really interesting about this overly long movie (honestly, it could have lost 45 mins easily. And Michael Bay knows that there are other women rather than just 18 year old not very bright long legged girls in ridiculously tight shorts, right?) was the effect the rise of China is having on movie making and plotlines. In it, the US government is portrayed as corrupt, in hock to big business, and incompetent.

But when the baddies attack Hong Kong, it’s a whole different ball game. A Hong Kong official declares (bizarrely, in English. All the other Chinese characters speak Mandarin) that “we must contact the central government for help!” Cut to the handsome, square jawed Chinese defence minister (a million miles from the snivelling White House chief of staff), surrounded by People’s Army generals, jutting out his jaw and announcing that “Hong Kong will be defended at all costs!”.

Seriously. I mean, I know we want to sell movies in China, but this is the way it’s going to be? The Central Committee are actually going to just have this stuff dropped into it? Really?