Transformers: Dark of the Moon doesn’t hit theaters until June 29, however a 20-minute preview I attended proved that it will be one of the summer’s biggest releases. The 3-D team behind Avatar worked on this film, which is the first in the Transformers franchise to be shot in 3-D. Michael Bay, the director, says that this team is the best in the 3-D medium.
The first five minutes of the film is a bit of a history lesson. According to the film, the U.S. government thought that something launched by the Russians landed on the moon and that was what put the space race into gear. The film featured real shots of President Kennedy plus other historical footage, paired with modern 3-D clips, which was unexpected to me. Think of it as being in the style of Forest Gump, but the added 3-D technology made the scenes feel much more real.
During the war between the Autobots and the evil Decepticons, a Cybertronian spacecraft was hidden on the moon as a last hope. As the film continues, the Autobots and Decepticons try to get to this spacecraft before the other side.
At the preview, the selected scenes were not entirely finished in 3-D, but the 3-D that was completed seemed state of the art. It’s nothing like I had ever seen before. The 3-D technology made me feel as if I were really part of the Transformers landscape. For example, I felt like I was flying or really a part of a chase scene. And although the preview featured mostly serious action scenes, it still had that Transformers humor that the audience responds to.
Bay said filming the movie was truly pioneering and featured things that had never been done before. A scene in which the characters were skydiving out of a plane was partially filmed by placing a camera on one of the actual skydiver’s heads. It gave the audience a sense of flying through the air and cityscape.
Bay said he was extremely excited to work on a 3-D project. His well-known large-scope, detailed battle scenes paired nicely with the realistic 3-D effects. Be sure to gear up for the release of this film, which hits theaters June 29.
-Jill Feigelman
Photo Credit: It’s A Thrall World
