As you may know, this week is CinemaCon, where studios dangle shiny things in front of theater owners to soothe them, and confirm that everyone will make piles of money with the blockbusters they have on the way. Directors and stars come out with great enthusiasm, show off footage, and everyone oohs and aaahs and dreams with dollar signs in their heads. But it seems that even heading into his fourth movie, Michael Bay is a bit protective/insecure about his “Transformers” series, throwing some shade on the other robot movies out there.
Indeed, Bay — who is in Las Vegas to hang out with Victoria’s Secret models to promote both next week’s “Pain & Gain” and “Transformers 4” — casually dismissed unspecified “ripoff” movies, claiming audiences know that his robot smashfest is the real deal or whatever. Was he talking about the mega-flop “Battleship” or maybe “Real Steel“? That would be weird, months and months after the fact, and many speculated he’s taking a jab at Guillermo Del Toro‘s robot smashfest “Pacific Rim.” Well, he isn’t taking it lightly.
“This is my universe and my creation, and I do not create through comparison,” he told THR, launching this little criticism at Bay about the action in his films: “The fights don’t occur in well-lit, super cool, car commercial-looking environments. They occur in the middle of a raging sea storm or in a savage snow storm. They happen in a universe that is incredibly saturated.” Oh snap!
Indeed, Bay’s “Transformers” movies are basically 50% advertising, not just for Chevrolet but for whatever company signs up for product placement, so well done, Del Toro. But in the end, the director is a good sport, adding “the source of all artificial life is Frankenstein” but still saying that his giant jaegers would destroy every “robot in the history of mankind in a toe-to-toe showdown.” Strong words.
What do you say about all this? Let us know below. “Pacific Rim” transforms opens on July 12th.
I\’ll take Pacific Rim over Transformer of trash any day. And yes in a toe to toe showdown Jaegers will win the battle.
Thank you for that. I speak fluent sarcasmo myself… It really should be taught at the elementary school level.
bay is 1 of the best directors of his time..if there were a hall-of-fame in hollywood, he'd be in it.
I'm not a fan of Michael Bay at all, but man is there a director out there who has more publicity with such little to show than Del Toro? The Hellboy films were decent and only got acclaim because they were an alternative to the Nolan Batman giant wave of hype. Aside from Pan's the guy hasn't done much (his early horror films are only retroactively considered good after he got famous). Here's hoping Pacific Rim is actually decent so he can back up all this publicity he gets.
"The fights don't occur in well-lit, super cool, car commercial-looking environments. They occur in the middle of a raging sea storm or in a savage snow storm."
So basically, they're harder to see and easier to conceal shitty CGI? That's not a badge of honor.
To the kid named HMMM:
Thanks for proving what morons you Bay-haters really are. The second someone comes and starts praising Bay you little worms throw crap like "Are you Michael Bay?". Come up with something better next time, pal. And accept the fact that A LOT of people like Michael Bay. I'm a huge fan of Bay and I agree 100% with THISLALIFE. When it comes to action spectacle Del Toro is a complete amateur next to Bay. The only one who can match Bay is James Cameron.
As for the article: congratulations for another craptastic piece of writing, Kevin Jagernauth a.k.a. "The guy who can't stop talking about Bay". Keep going. I'm sure it'll get you far.
You tell 'em Guillermo, Michael Bay doesn't have an ounce of your talents and passion for cinema.
When it comes to action spectacle, Bay is da God and Del Toro should be taking notes. I'll wait and see on Pacific Rim, but considering that all the footage we've seen so far has been in boringly lit overcast skies or night, I'll side with the Bay, the babes, the bots and beautiful daytime battles.