Earlier in the week, I wrote about Michael Bay’s comments on his forum referencing the robots featured in Terminator Salvation. In his post, Bay basically claims ownership of all large robots in films this summer then boasts about the upcoming marketing blitz that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will engage in starting with the Super Bowl and leading up to it’s release.
Well, in round 2 of the Bay vs. McG matchup, McG fires back (slightly). The team over at Comcast caught up to the director of the 4th Terminator film at an early footage screening of it and asked him how he felt about Bay’s words.
|
|
“It bothers me to tell you the truth. Ultimately, our large robots have nothing to do with the “Transformers” robots,” MCG replied. “I say with respect, giant robots have been the theme of film for a real long time . So we want to do everything we can to create separation,” he continued. “Our film’s about T-800s and the Marcus character and the Connor character, and this, that, and the other. So, to have people have a problem with that wouldn’t be working for us so we want to make sure there’s separation.”
So while it’s obvious that he’s bottling up some anger inside, McG is taking the higher road in this matter in that while he’s admitting to it bothering him, he’s not attacking back or making fun of Bay’s work. Good on you McG, now you best follow this up with a high quality movie or all of this will be for naught.
Either way, this back-and-forth jabbing is good for both films and will generate plenty of free hype and discussion of the two movies. We all know both of these films will be summer blockbusters so neither director needs to worry too much on that end.
While on the topic of McG, he’s also taken the time to address some of the rumors out there regarding Terminator Salvation. The following are the key points:
He confirmed that they are in talks with Linda Hamilton (apparently, she is supportive of the movie) to have her do some voiceover work for the film. Story wise, her narration would come from the tapes she made for her son, John Connor at the end of the first Terminator and would be used to open and close the movie.- For Danny Elfman’s score of the movie, they intend to incorporate themes from Brad Fiedel’s original Terminator score and they use quite a lot of it – including (obviously a must) the epic Terminator theme song from all of the movies.
- McG is still dodging questions relating to Arnold Schwarzenegger having an appearance in the film – the rumor has it that they are using face recognition software to use his face and voice and put it on another body for the movie – Hopefully a T-800 unit. McG does say however, that they will screen the movie for Arnold to get his blessing.
Well, these are all good things in my mind. It’s absolutely essential to pay homage to the original score and include the main parts of that into Terminator Salvation. For the other two points, it would be a big added bonus to the film to have Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger play a party, even if it’s just to make it more authentic and tie the new trilogy into the told one.
What do you think of the Michael Bay-McG debacle? How about the responses to the rumors?
Terminator Salvation hits theaters May 22, 2009 and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen debuts June 26, 2009.
Source: Comcast, SCI FI Wire
Loading ...
27 Comments
The Bay thing doesnt matter to me.
All the other things are GREAT!
sounds like MCG is a real fan .
Michael Bay is not afraid to speak his mind.
I support him instead of McG.
I find the debate about the Terminator franchise “stealing” the Transformer concept a real non-issue. I’m of the mind that if Hollywood could have produced realistic-looking giant robots that Cameron would have probably used them in the earlier films, too (most likely only in glimpses of the future). The technology has evolved to make this an option, so why wouldn’t the Terminator films do something like this? Besides, unless the large terminator things start sporting names like Optimus Prime or Megatron… I mean, really? Who cares?
Transformers will probably disappoint again. I haven’t much faith in Michael Bay after seeing what he did with the first film.
As these men are supposed to be professionals, I respect McG for responding the way he did to Bay’s unnecessarily jaded remarks.
On a side note, $10 says Bay’s dizzying rotating camera effect will make an appearance in Transformers 2 at least once.
lol, I aint taking that bet J BIZ because you’ll win.
Bay’s just driving hype for his project which will be his highest grossing ever and one of the biggest of the year.
It’s the same thing as Robert Downey Jr. making fun of DC and The Dark Knight – he’s loving the side he’s on and riling up the fanboys. Professional or not, I think it’s exciting – better than the usual media-trained boredom that are most interviews.
I think its kinda fun. Harkens back to the older days when studio would hire actors/actresses to contracts with their studio. So it is their best interest to hype their own franchises against any other similar franchises.
Nothing drives people in hoards to the theatre than hype, and thats all Mr.Bay is doing. One has to wonder, if Bay is going this far to hype his film, it makes you question how good the finished product will be. I may be the only here that enjoyed the first Transfomers and Bays films, but when you say someone stole your ideas and your concepts, someone needs to take a pin and pop that oversized ego. Not too mention how childish it is to attack someone elses work, even if it is MCG.
As for the rumors, McG has lied to the fanbase before about Camerons belssing, so what’s not to sya he is lying here? I for one will wait to see the finished product before believing what he says.
I wonder…if big robots are ripoffs of Transformers (as Michael “Cries-like-a-BAY-bee” Bay would have us believe), then he should sue the makers of The Iron Giant, all the Power Rangers series, etc. for copyright infringement!
@PhotoShopLifter Dan
Maybe he could talk to Fox? I’m sure they can invent a past copyright to have been infringed upon.
I was going to say it should be easy to find previous art.
Pop quiz folks. What movie starring giant transforming robots used the Terminator theme during a freeway fight scene?
Transformers
Yah Adam, Bay isn’t afraid to speak his mind, unfortunately he’s also not afraid to make a bunch of crappy movies for us to suffer through…
only 1 way to solve this ROBOT-SHOWDOWN !
WHy does McG need Arnold’s blessing for this new Terminator movie..the last one sucked monkey dandriff and that had Arnold’s blessing too…Geez why are they afraid to say they can make a decent Terminator movie without the blessings of Cameron, Arnold, Hamilton, etc ,etc
WHy not get the blessings of Edward Furlong (the most annoying aspect of the T2), Robert Patrick, Joe Morton, Nick Stahl, Kristanna Loken, Claire Danes, Earl Boen(the only member other than Arnold to appear in all three films), Ronald McDOnald, the Burger King, TDK, Snow White and whoever else they think they need to make this film so no one previously attached to the franchise gets offended because they weren’t asked for a blessing..
Just make a good movie and you’ll have nothing to worry about blessings from anyone except the people who buy tickets to see it…
I thought I remember after the movie was done in theaters and there was no real need to promote it anymore that Arnold actually admitted that he thought the movie wasn’t good… (T3 I mean)
And getting Arnold’s blessing would be nice. He promoted T3 because he was in the movie, so obviously he’s going to promote it. But he’s not in this film, if he says good things about it, it might actually be true. I really do remember something about Arnold saying T3 was not a good movie at some point after the movie had finished its theatrical run. Maybe I’ll look for it when I get home from work.
But definitely if it gets Cameron’s blessing that would mean something.
I think the purpose of all of this “asking for blessings” BS is not in the fear of offending anyone, it’s for publicity. Fans of the original (real) series T1 and T2 that were let down by the atrocity that is T3 would probably be skeptical of T4. He’s trying to “win” them back by going “look, the people behind the originals think this is good, it’s not going to be crap like T3.”
I don’t see how a blessing from Snow White would accomplish this, so it’s kind of a joke that makes no sense, but whatever…
I agree – Cameron’s blessing is the only one that actually matters and is an indicator of the quality of the film.
Geez Ken..send me your address so I can send you ten bucks to go buy a sense of humor..just a joke man..just a joke..and I disagree, the blessing thing is just a pile of junk…
… Yes, I understand it was a joke, just saying the joke would have actually been funny if it made sense, which it doesn’t, thus this quote from my post:
“so it’s kind of a joke that makes no sense”
I’m pretty sure I just acknowledged that it was a joke. But I’ll take your ten buckaroos anyway.
Or maybe you should spend it to buy yourself reading comprehension skills…
OOooohhhhhhh…ok, sorry, that was corny… *EPIC FAIL*
@ Ken
My reading comprehension skills are getting a lot better since I picked up those two volumes of the Electric Company.. A lot more than ten bucks though
I had to wiki what the Electric Company is, lol.
About the feud between MCG and Michael Bay, i must say Bay is being childish. Bay must not seen Cameron’s first two terminator films that had big robots called Hunter Killers i think that had no legs but were big robots on the ground. and the standing robot in Terminator Salvation really aint that different. Though i enjoyed Bay’s transformers film, he still disappointed me by not doin his research on the transformers names. anyways, bottom line is Bay is whining over nothin. he couldnt possibly be worried about compitition over two franchises that got nothin to do to one another.
I don’t think Bay has grounds to say that McG is copying ideas, Bay has a pretender..a robot disgiused as a human…hhmmmm that sounds like a terminator to me.
What's your opinion? Leave a Reply!
Go to Gravatar.com and upload your own (we'll wait)!