Quote:
Originally Posted by Faux Mecha
makes you think why they didn't do this for the 2007 movie in the first place?
|
From what I saw in the "Making of"-featurette and the Audio Commentray in the DVD/BD release back then, back in 2005/2006 before the movie was made, ILM didn't even know how to do a convincing/realistic transforming robots that still retain some parts of the vehicles when in robot mode. It's thanks to Michael Bay pushing the limit of the VFX technology with the help of a Japanese programmer that they were able to make a a program that can make a convincing mechanical transforming objects (robots, in this case). But the achievement of the VFX was encouraged by the "realism" of the designs of the Japanese artists. They seem to put more focus on portraying "realistic alien-robots" and "realistic setting" than capturing the aesthetic of the G1 (which, let's admit it, some G1 designs
do look silly). At the time, they couldn't wrap their heads around Megatron transforming into a gun, Soundwave who is a big tape-recorder that launch cassette-transformers, and Starscream who is a jet fighter with bright primary colors and silly face. They thought the G1 designs were gonna look dumb when put in a realistic world where the US Forces take the Transformers invasion seriously. And the VFX-team certainly didn't want something silly-looking and simple as their transforming-robot debut. I'm partly agree with them. That
Skorponok-scene is still one of the best scenes in the entire Bayformers series thanks to the added realism without committing the sin of "too much is happening on screen" that later sequels are guilty of.
I'm actually one of those (few) people who respect
Transformers (2007) and Michael Bay for what they have done to push and advance the VFX technology. Hollywood VFX have never seen that much breakthrough ever since
Jurassic Park. Note that before TF1, the most complex CGI character that ILM had done was General Grievous from
Star Wars III. To go from
Grievous to transforming
Optimus Prime is no small feat.