Thanks go to forum member JFDWrites for this bit of info. With Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen on the verge of release, it seems that director, the infamous explosive-fetishist Michael Bay, has stepped down from the production of the proposed third installment in the phenomenally successful franchise. Bay states that he has “had enough” of making giant blockbusters.

Sick of facing critical ridicule for his taste in intense action sequences, the director has been quoted as saying that “It’s easy to go shoot an art movie in a winery in the South of France. But people have no idea how hard it is to create something like Transformers. They (the critics) review me before they’ve even seen the movie.” In light of this reputation, Bay has made the decision to diverge from the genre and do something different, “without any explosions”.

This move isn’t entirely unprecedented on Bay’s part; a while back, he stated that he would delay the release of the third film from 2011 to 2012, citing tiredness with the Transformers universe as his reason. The question now is that if Transformers 3 does go ahead, then who will be at the reins?

Discuss this item further over on the Forums

Hello BOTS and girls!  Get it!!?  Bots! Instead of, you know, boys…

Anyway!  Michael Bay has put up some fun fun silly willy facts on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  Many of which are actually quite exciting.  Check them out below.

Robots

• 14 robots last time, 46 robots this time (ILM only)
• If you had all the gold ever mined in the history of man, you could build a little more than half of Devastator.
• Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots.
• Devastator’s hand is traveling 390 miles per hour when he punches the pyramid.
• The pyramid destruction simulation was 8 times bigger than the old rigid simulation all-time record holder at ILM.
• All robot parts laid out end to end would stretch from one side of California to the other, about 180 miles
• Devastator’s parts stacked tip to tip would be as tall as 58 empire state buildings.
• If all the texture maps on the show were printed on 1 square yard sheets, they would cover 13 football fields.

Disk space

• TF1 took 20 Terabytes of disk space. Trans2 took 145 Terabytes. Seven times bigger!
• 145 terabytes would fill 35,000 DVDs. Stacked one on top of the other without storage cases, they would be 145 feet tall.

Rendering times

• If you rendered the entire movie on a modern home PC, you would have had to start the renders 16,000 years ago (when cave paintings like the Hall of Bulls were being made) to finish for this year’s premiere!
• A single imax shot in the movie (df250) would have taken almost 3 years to render on a top of the line home PC running nonstop.
• IMAX frame render times: As high as 72 hours per frame!

Imax

• Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots.
• Imax frames take about 6 times longer than anamorphic to render.
• IMAX frame render times: As high as 72 hours per frame!

ILM screen time

ILM Screen Time is about 51 minutes.

Devastator

• Devastator is as tall as a 10 story building.
• Devastator has more than 10 times the number of individual parts found in an average car.
• Laid out end to end, Devastator’s parts would be almost 14 miles long.

Devastator totals

• Number of geom pieces: 52632
• The total number of polygons: 11,716,127
• The total length of all pieces: 73090 feet
• The total length of all pieces: 13.84 miles

Lots of cool stuff there!  What do you think?  Let us know on the Forum.

Hey everyone,

In Japan today. After a month and half seven days a week most days going till midnight me and my crew have just about finished Transformers. I have never seen such a level of dedication from every crew member in a movie before.

Even today after the press in Japan and right before the premiere tonight, I have to sneak out to a digital house to approve the last few effect shots.

It has been a long hard road, but really fun one to travel. What you will notice that is strikingly different than Transformers 1, is the level of animation detail. The robot characters (42 in all), you really can feel empathy for them. What is also very different is the sheer scale of the movie. We have been very tight holding back much of the best imagery in commercials and trailers.

The way to see this movie is on IMAX. Never before has there been 4k rendered character animation shot on full IMAX 70 mm film. This is a first and the results are stunning. You will see Optimus Prime in a few shots where he is actually perfectly to scale on the IMAX 50 foot tall screens.

For IMAX, I created a slightly longer cut with more robot fighting. Four scenes were shot on IMAX cameras so the screen will fill the full IMAX screen for these scenes.

Haters beware.

Michael

Notice that last sentence? “For IMAX, I created a slightly longer cut with more robot fighting.”

Also if you remember a while back Bay also mentioned that he shot some scenes with the IMAX cameras, so we also have full IMAX images to look forward too. So there you have it.  It would seem that if you want the most out of the film then you should definitely see it in IMAX!

To find a theater near you go here.

Discuss on the forum.

Asked what the Fallen’s relationship to Megatron is, the series star offered an intriguing explanation. “It’s the Emperor and Darth Vader — it’s that kind of situation,” LaBeouf said. “He’s the main villain, so two and two makes four. He’s a badass. He has to be.”

Check out the full interview below:

Discuss on the forums!

Discuss on the forum.

Also Creative Screenwriting Magazine has a write up in their latest issue that reveals some details about the mysterious plot of the film.  Possible SPOILER warning below.

When the story begins, the Autobots and the military have been waging a secret war against the Decpticons.  As more of the giant robots continue to resurface, though, it becomes apparent the Transformers have been part of Earth’s history for longer than they’d led mankind to believe.  One group of bureaucrats even womders if the Decepticons are only appearing because of the Autobot presence.  Desperate not to leave Earth undefended, Optimus Prime turns to Sam and asks him to become a human advocate, someone who will convince mankind that the Autobots should be allowed to saty.  Sam refuses to believe he can help, though, wanting to go to college and live a normal life – as normal as possible with the strange thoughts and visions that have haunted him since being exposed to the All Spark’s primal energies two years earlier.  Alas, Sam’s refusal will have harsh consequences for himself, the Autobots and possibly the entire world.  The Decepticons fallen leader, Megatron has been resurrected and brings with him an ancient evil from the Transformers own history.

“All great sequels have an incredibly frightening bad guy,” says Kurtzman, amending their earlier list of traits, “who challenges your hero in a way that is unique,”  They found such a character in the comic-book Transformers mythology, a primordial creature known only as The Fallen.  “He was one of the first Transformers.  He was Lucifer.  He was the fallen angel.  And it just felt like a great place to come from.”

Discuss on the forums!

What do you think? Let us know your opinions on the Forum!

As Transformers is going to be available in IMAX format, and as IMAX theaters generally only show trailers for other IMAX-available movies, this in turn raised the issue of whether The Last Airbender would be shown in the hallowed ultra-super-mega-huge form. Marshall stated, “I’m not a big fan of blowing up 35mm for IMAX screens. An IMAX movie should be shot and composed in 70mm…” While this isn’t a definite indictment of IMAX, it does seem that The Last Airbender’s chances of making its way to the super-cinema are slim.

Nevertheless, it now appears that we’ll get our first glimpse of Aang and co. in two months’ time. For further discussion, head over to the Forums

The clip, at 2:31 minutes long, begins with a “breakup” scene between Sam Witwicky and Autobot Bumblebee, showcasing both the movie’s state-of-the-art special effects and its sense of humour. It concludes with a montage of the movie’s myriad action scenes, seeing the Autobots and Decepticons laying waste both to each other and the surrounding environment.

For further discussion, you can head over to the Forums