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Friday, July 03, 2009

Transformers movie design now and then. Ugly and bad.





If you want to design ugly robots go Josh Nizzi

I loved transformers when I was a kid. Now this new hollywood director Michael Bay with no real connection to original transformers series or origin hires a designer Josh Nizzi who made the robots to look hideous piles of metal junk.
I am not saying he is a bad artist, but I only don´t like the "modern" style of the Autobots and Decepticons. Of course modeling techniques have evolved since 80´s and the shapes can be much more complex. However I feel the effects industry are trying to force mass audience to swallow too much in one big piece.
The design process techniques are also sold to other artists in the industry. It´s still interesting how these mean and ugly things are made. One can purchase videos how to make such ugly shit as the designer himself.

Take a look at the Robot Design DVD by Josh Nizzi.
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/540/

I have to emphasize I don´t personally hate Michael Bay or any designer involved in this movie. He´s only a director who does his job. I only hate bad movies with only purpose to be mass produced mindless entertainment with cheap stories. These movies are like junk meals in McDonalds. They are consumed fast and next day forgotten. (btw: McDonalds is a food chain which I really do hate)

If you want hollywood crap - then use Michael Bay as a director


In my opinion the first part of movie was enough for me to convince that the original idea was totally raped. The idea was raped by making transformers all american patriotic and stupid american shit without any of the original fun seen in the tv-series in 80´s. The movie was totally just a showcase of new 3d-animation techniques and special effects with a stupid teenage highschool story.
As 3d-animation it´s really good but as watched it is just another too long vfx-advertisement of cars embedded into a movie. It´s main purpose for me is to sell the different car models to different types of consumers. Core of target group at the youngest typically is a 18 year boy who supposedly already have a freshly obtained driving licence.
And one that will not question things but blindly straight after seen the movie will go into General Motors car store to see the cars.

Originally the bumblebee was volkswagen and in modern version they had to make it from Chevy. Otherwise it would be not american since Volkswagen is from Europe. I am not anti-American but I felt it was purely done as a patriotic movie heavy product placement and marketing of Chevy automobiles.
So marketing forces quite much have dictated the car models seen in the movie.
Read more about the product placement here:
http://www.frankwbaker.com/transformers_product_placement.htm


Bumblebee name is also a moniker of the Volkswagen car model Beetle and in my opinion think the Chevy car cannot be bumblebee. I bet many new american transformer fans must be ignorant to this fact. In Finland it´s called "Kupla" and in Sweden "Bubbla".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Volkswagen_Bubbla_sista_bilen.jpg


Original transformers bumblebee.








Modern "bumblebee":

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