Bay Talks Revenge, Moon

In an interview with Hero Complex, Transformers: Dark of the Moon director Michael Bay discusses the disappointment he had with Revenge of the Fallen and how he thinks Dark of the Moon is a much better film, comparing its style "as a sort of homeland version of ”Black Hawk Down.” The full article is here.

“[Revenge of the Fallen] was kind of a mess, wasn’t it?” an unsmiling Bay said of the 2009 film, which was far from a flop — it grossed a potent $836 million worldwide, finishing third for the year behind only “Avatar” and the sixth “Harry Potter” movie. But the director still talks about the blockbuster in tones of regret. “Look, the movie had some good things in it and it was entertaining and it did very well, but it also failed in some key ways. I learned from it. And now with this third movie we’re going back to basics and I absolutely believe this is going to be a much better film than the second one.”

“I’m still having fun and especially with this movie,” Bay said. ”Look, we got burned on the last movie. The big thing was the writers strike, it hurt the film and it made it hard on everybody. We had three weeks to get our story and, really, we were going into the movie without a script. It’s tough to do that. It was too big of a movie. There were too many endings or too many things that felt like endings. There was so much animation [in the visual effects postproduction work], too, and we ran out of time. We used the schedule of the first movie for the second movie but on the second one way more labor was needed for the animation. And then it felt like we were writing the script in the edit room, trying to put together a story.”

“I think we have something to prove with this third one,” Bay said of the movie that brings back star Shia LaBeouf in the role of Sam Witwicky, the young everyman who befriends an Autobot called Bumblebee. ”We’re back to basics. The second one was something going on inside of Sam, the way he’s affected and feeling, and that’s a hard thing to do. It’s more mystical, in a way. This one, there’s nothing mystical about it. It’s a good old-fashioned mystery and it’s a tougher movie … it’s funny but it’s not a wisecrack-funny; it’s funnier in the situation.”

Spielberg [says]: “As the plot thickens in the third installment of ‘Transformers,’ Michael’s work on it feels fresh and energized … with lots of new and inventive ways of turning a page on this franchise.“

Instead of giant military operations and armada imagery, this third ”Transformers” film is “lean and mean,” Bay says, and the script by Ehren Kruger (“The Ring“) presents more of a small-team, commando tension. Bay says he thinks of this film as a sort of homeland version of ”Black Hawk Down” — but, you know, with giant alien robots. Instead of Middle East deserts, the majority of the action will be set amid the smoldering boulevards of Chicago where humanity continues to fight against the hulking mecha-warriors from outer space, exploiting their one known weakness (their eyes).

“I don’t want to talk about it, but we obviously replaced our girl, and by everything I see we fared well,” Bay said, nodding over his shoulder toward Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. “Look, I will say that I think we have a better cast with this third movie than we’ve ever had.”

...Bay didn’t mince words about his motivation. “I’m trying,” he said, “to make up for movie two.”