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Buzz: Michael Bay's 'Transformers 3' Sounds Like it Will Be Awesome

by Alex Billington
April 15, 2011

Hold onto your hats, this might get a 'lil heated. Even bigger than ever before giant effin' robots are coming! Though we haven't seen anything more than the great Super Bowl spot and last year's teaser trailer, a few lucky folks were shown 20 minutes of footage from Michael Bay's Transformers: Dark of the Moon and apparently it looks quite awesome. Paramount hosted an editing room presentation with Michael Bay, which we were not invited to, where they saw a few action scenes (some in 3D) that blew them away. Could it be possible?! Could Transformers 3 actually be really good? At least it seems like it'll be a visual spectacle!

We all know Michael Bay has a long, long way he must go if he is truly going to recover from the disaster that was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which even I despise, but it sounds like it might be possible. And yes, I know it's probably a travesty to some that I'm even saying good things about Transformers at all, but it's summer blockbuster entertainment, I can't say no to that. Michael Bay is a visual mastermind. He apparently spent eight months working on the script and also perfecting the technical use of 3D, which I've heard looks great in this. Transformers 3 was shot with 3D cameras when he was doing wide, action scenes, but he used film for close-ups (like for Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), which they will then stereograph later.

That said, it sounds like this footage impressed everyone there. A number of media outlets got to see roughly 20 minutes, which included a skydiving sequence where the camera follows divers in 3D as they jump out of a plane, plus a scene where a gigantic Decepticon robot wraps around an entire skyscraper, tearing it to the ground. I'm easily sold on visuals, especially during the summer, so I'm in. Here's a few of the best quotes:

Peter Scireta from SlashFilm:

"Imagine following these guys in 3D (from a real 3D camera rigged to one of these guys heads) with Decepticons flying after shooting, destroying buildings in their aftermath. It looked insane."

"And talk about insane, another sequence we saw, which you will see briefly in the next trailer, features a huge sandworm-like Decepticon wrapping itself around a skyscraper, squeezing, tearing it apart. At the same time, our heroes are in an upper floor fending off Decepticons while the building is collapsing. Chairs and furniture are sliding as the building slowly falls over, and our heroes must find a way to survive, but can they? The whole sequence is worth the price of admission alone. Dare I say that the visuals outdo some of the more mind-perplexing stuff we saw in Inception. Bay had outdone himself on this one."

Melissa Molina from Latino Review:

"The footage looked pretty sweet, especially the visuals. I had my gripes about how hard it was to follow the Transformers with the past two films so I was really nervous about how it would all look in 3D. It flows along nicely and I can't wait to see more from Ken Jeong, John Malkovich and Patrick Dempsey's characters. Rosie isn't dumb-sandy-blonde like most people think she'd be and Shia doesn't seem as ultra-fidgety this time around (his acting was one of the things I didn't dig about "Transformers 2"). The action sequences look really badass (pardon my fangirl language) and fans will definitely soil their pants when they see Optimus and the others rip into the Decepticons."

Anthony Breznican from EW.com:

"There’s no way to judge Transformers 3 yet based only on these scenes (which Bay admitted choosing because they revealed little about the plot). But what we saw: Craaaazy!"

"Spaceship crashes on the moon. Squads of American fighter jets casually shot down in the sky over Chicago like flies sprayed with bug spray. LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky brawling, man against machine, in a back alley with the Decepticon jet Starscream. (Hint: When fist-fighting a giant robot, it helps to have a grappling hook. And aim for the eyeball.) Wounded V-22 Ospreys slamming into each other as soldiers skydive between the colliding tiltrotor planes, then swooping through the city's canyons on wingsuits, like flying squirrels, dodging Decepticon fire ..."

Hugh Hart from Wired.com:

"Aerial sequences, crumbling skyscrapers, streams of robot spittle and shots of LaBeouf’s Witwicky being hurled through the air while tethered to a bloody-eyed Decepticon are among the shots that benefit most obviously from the stereoscopic depth of field offered by Dark of the Moon’s 3-D treatment."

"Working with the same camera crew that shot Avatar, Bay said that with the third chapter in his scrambling-bot saga, 'I wanted to make up for Transformers 2.'"

Head over to any of those websites linked above to read their full write-up about the exclusive event, which sounds like it impressed everyone. This is the kind of footage that I love seeing to get hyped up for the summer movie season. As for Bay and recovering, well, he is determined to make amends for Revenge of the Fallen, and it may be with Transformers 3. "A lot of people on the third one would just check out, get a paycheck," Bay said. "I've been working every day for two years, every single day, because I want to make-up for the second one. And I want to leave this franchise as best I can." I hope that means that Transformers: Dark of the Moon will be the smartest movie in the franchise, as that would be incredibly satisfying to see.

"This one is a more mature storyline. It's definitely darker," Bay said. "When people see the movie, they feel it's more emotional at the end. The stakes are higher because it takes place in an American city." Let's hope he's put some more thought into the story than that, though honestly I'm mostly seeing this for the visuals. Though, to be honest, from everything I've heard and all of these early quotes and reactions, it sounds like Bay has potentially made the best, and unquestionably the biggest, Transformers movie in the series. The first trailer hits April 28th, until then, watch the Super Bowl spot again via the banner below!

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