Rumours

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen To Get Shifting Aspect Ratios and Longer Cut on Blu-ray?

By brenden ⋅ June 10, 2009 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

I’m not trying to stir up shit here. This just seems like common sense to me. Though it’s not even in cinemas yet, all signs are pointing to the eventual Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen Blu-ray release getting The Dark Knight treatment: aspect ratios that shift between 1.78:1 and 2.4:1 to approximate the theatrical experience of watching the film in IMAX. Michael Bay, outspoken Blu-ray enthusiast, shot four scenes with an IMAX camera and rendered the CGI robots in 4K resolution - a first for this style of special effect - to take advantage of the stupidly large 53ft tall screen. According to the director, those high-res scenes play longer in the IMAX cut of the film, shafting those poor souls who only experience the 35mm version out of a further few minutes of manic robot action. It only stands to reason that this longer cut will be the director’s preferred version to appear on Blu-ray as well, shifting IMAX ratios intact, no doubt shafting DVD purchasers out of the extended cut as well.

So, this is my math: If IMAX=MORE ROBOTS and IMAX=BLU-RAY then BLU-RAY=MORE ROBOTS! (Ok, I always sucked at math…) The long and the short of it is that the Blu-ray edition of the film will have greater video resolution and most likely, more robot fighting than on DVD.

Michael Bay posted this statement on his official forum Sunday night:

“In Japan today. After a month and half seven days a week most days going till midnight me and my crew have just about finished Transformers. I have never seen such a level of dedication from every crew member in a movie before.

Even today after the press in Japan and right before the premiere tonight, I have to sneak out to a digital house to approve the last few effect shots.

It has been a long hard road, but really fun one to travel. What you will notice that is strikingly different than Transformers 1, is the level of animation detail. The robot characters (42 in all), you really can feel empathy for them. What is also very different is the sheer scale of the movie. We have been very tight holding back much of the best imagery in commercials and trailers.

The way to see this movie is on IMAX. Never before has there been 4k rendered character animation shot on full IMAX 70 mm film. This is a first and the results are stunning. You will see Optimus Prime in a few shots where he is actually perfectly to scale on the IMAX 50 foot tall screens.

For IMAX, I created a slightly longer cut with more robot fighting. Four scenes were shot on IMAX cameras so the screen will fill the full IMAX screen for these scenes.”

Expect Paramount/Dreamworks to announce details of the disc release before the summer is out. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is in IMAX and old, boring theatres June 24th.

Tags: Aspect Ratio, CGI, Christopher Nolan, IMAX, Japan, Michael Bay, Robots, The Dark Knight, Transformers, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen