The short version of my report: Michael Bay has created the best 3D movie experience since Avatar - and may have even surpassed it.
Set during a time previous to the events of the movie, High Moon’s Dark of the Moon title will ensure that gamers have a multitude of options for taking down their foes.
With a unique story and High Moon’s success with War for Cybertron, Dark of the Moon has a chance to prove that, in the hands of a proven developer, any property can survive the movie tie-in game.
As with the LA event, the footage screened at the NYC event included the first 5 minutes ofDark of the Moon, followed by a montage of footage and extended sequences from the film, all of them action scenes (little to no plot was revealed). The LA event featured a panel with Michael Bay and James Cameron talking 3D in cinema, and even though the pair of famed directors weren’t available for the NYC event, footage of their conversation was included in our screening. You can check out what they had to say by going HERE.
Onto the footage: Roth Cornet broke down everything in detail in her own report (check it out HERE), so I’ll just do a quick synopsis:
The beginning of the film ties the Cold War space race directly to a mysterious event that occurred in the war on Cybertron between the Autobots and Decepticons. After that, we saw several short flashes of Transformers new and old in action, a few chase sequences, plenty of battle scenes in downtown Chicago – and of course, the base jumping stunt sequence that Michael Bay filmed with live actors, one of whom wore a 3D camera on his head while jumping.
Needless to say, Transformers 3 is going to have a lot of sick summer action. But is it worth a 3D ticket price?
Short answer: You don’t want to see this movie any other way
If you don’t know, James Cameron lobbied Micahel Bay to use 3D in this film, even when Bay himself wasn’t convinced. After deciding to go 3D, Bay used Cameron’s 3D team from Avatar to film Transformers 3, and that team – which had already created one revolutionary success – pushed the boundaries of 3D filming even further, resulting in new rigs and camera designs to create that one-of-a-kind Michael Bay brand of action.
But technical innovations aside, how does the 3D in Transformers: Dark of the Moon actually look?
In a word: Incredible.
Personally speaking, there’s little that I see in film these days that gives me goosebumps. There’s a lot that I enjoy (naturally), but there’s little that gives me actual goosebumps. Without spoiling a thing, there were 3D sequences in the preview that had me shooting right past goosebumps into ‘OMG’ territory. Some of what Michael Bay has constructed is just…impressive. His ambitious and often aggressive style for capturing action in motion maybe the perfect marriage for the 3D medium. The results of his innovative work are also proof (as a friend from UGO said on the way out of the screening) that ‘If you don’t shoot in 3D, you shouldn’t even bother.’ All these post-converted 3D films coming out this summer (Thor,Captain America) are likely going to look cheap by comparison.
The best part about it all is that the 3D technology Bay is employing brings the Transformers themselves to life in a way that none of his other films did. One of my first reactions after taking off the glasses was to say to myself, “Every one of these films should’ve looked like this.” The most common complaints about the Transformers movies’ visual effects (what few there were) included mention of the fact that the individual robots were hard to make out or distinguish, and that the CGI characters sometimes looked too fake when juxtaposed with their human counterparts. 3D, I am happy to report, eradicates most of these problems.
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