Michael Bay discusses nuts and bolts of making ‘Transformers'
Michael Bay discusses nuts and bolts of making 'Transformers'

By Matthew Price

Published: June 29, 2007

He didn't grow up as a Transformers fan. Director Michael Bay said he was about two years too old to fall into that demographic. But at this point, Bay said he's "thought more about robots on Earth than anyone in the past year and a half.”

"I'm a huge Transformer fan now,” he said.

"Transformers” is based on the toy property from Hasbro. The peace-loving Autobots have waged war with the evil Decepticons for years. In this summer's "Transformers” movie, directed by Bay, the battle comes to Earth. Both the Autobots and Decepticons are giant, robotic aliens with the ability to change shape into other mechanical forms.

Bay said he wanted to make a "Transformers” film that would appeal to people who didn't grow up with the characters.

"I actually think that because I wasn't a fan, I think makes it more accessible to other people, does that make sense?,” he said. "(Decepticon leader) Megatron was a gun, and I'm like, ‘I don't get that,' and I did get a lot of flak from fans on the 'net, like, ‘Michael Bay, you wrecked my childhood. ... We're going to protest his office.' They protested my old office apparently.”

Despite the negative reaction from some fans, Bay said he did listen to the concerns.

"I would listen to fans on the 'net, I really would. I would kind of hear their comments, but I'm still going to make my movie, and I'll still put flames on Optimus.”

Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots and transforms into a semitruck. In Bay's "Transformers,” that truck has flame designs, different from the plain red of the cartoon-and-toy Optimus. While Optimus may look different, he will sound the same. Voice actor Peter Cullen, who voiced Optimus Prime in the 1980s, returned to voice the character for the live-action film.

Bay said the hook that persuaded him to make the movie was that of a boy and his first car. In the movie, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) buys a yellow Camaro that is actually Bumblebee, an Autobot who is seeking information from Witwicky.

"When Steven (Spielberg) called me a year and a half ago, he said, ‘I want you to direct "Transformers”; it's a story about a boy who buys his first car,'” Bay said. "To me that was a great hook. I hung up and said, ‘Thank you, I'm not doing that stupid, silly toy movie.' But as I thought about it, the hook was great, because that's such a launching ground from a young adult into manhood or womanhood.”

Bay wanted the more fantastic elements of the movie to be contained in a more grounded reality.

"If you notice, I shot this movie kind of generic,” Bay said. "I've never in my life shot at a Burger King, or a guy riding on a pink bicycle, or a house that's kind of very suburbia. But it just makes it more acceptable and accessible to the ultra-slick uber-action around it.”

Bay also said getting military cooperation was key to making the film more realistic.

"You've got to have more than the external alien invasion,” he said. "To make it credible, you have to have the military. ... So you need that reality so you can ground this little kid's story.”

Bay said part of the challenge of "Transformers” was bringing the "giant robot” genre of Japanese anime into a live-action film.

"I've been offered a lot of superhero movies before, and nothing's really appealed to me,” Bay said. "... (but) because I've been such a fan of Japanese anime, it just hit me that if I make this really real, it could be something very new and different.”

The Transformers were brought to life via the animators at Industrial Light and Magic. Bay said creating the robots was not an easy process.

"Well, let me tell you, these robots didn't come out good at first,” Bay said. "It was hard. It was not all peaches and cream at ILM. There were a lot of angry phone calls like, ‘We have to do better. We have to do better.'”

Bay wanted the robots to have a particular style of movement similar to martial artists.

"I wanted them not to be clunky, lumbering robots. I looked at a lot of kung fu movies. I wanted them to have a different type of movement. So I would just clip different things from different movies, and I'd reference those to the animators on how they would move.”

Bay said he was pleased with the eventual look of the Transformer characters.

"The end result, it's like, you look at Bumblebee, and it's like there is a soul in this thing.”