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Megan Fox might look hot in a tank top, and Shia LaBeouf could be the next Harrison Ford, but when all is said and done, the main attractions of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” are those massive, shape-shifting machines. And in the sequel to 2007’s $700-million-grossing monster hit, the metallic beasties are not only bigger and badder, they’re also better actors than they were last time around.
“On the first movie, we weren’t sure how audiences would experience and accept an animated talking metal man,” says Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who produced both films. “On the second movie, we felt freer. We realized we could treat them as real characters. So, with each ’bot, we were a bit less inhibited. We gave them more dialogue and used them much more in scenes.”
Which is not to say that giant-sized goons like Devastator and Wheel Bot spend a lot of time sitting around shooting the breeze. As The Hollywood Reporter noted, the film is “a nonstop whirl of flying, battling and crashing machinery.”
When the first “Transformers” signed off, high-schooler Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) had left the shape-shifters behind after getting involved in a fierce war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. In the sequel, Sam is off at college and still tight with his gal pal Mikeala (Fox) when he finds a piece of ’bot-energizing All-Spark in his hoodie. Soon, the evil Megatron is back to stir up trouble. It’s up to Sam to search for a 1,000-year-old matrix that will reenergize Optimus Prime so he and his crew can save the world from the evil robots, including the Lucifer-like Fallen.
Sam and Mikeala aren’t the only ’bot busters on the scene. While they’re searching for the matrix, a handful of soldiers (Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel) are also on a mission to destroy the machines.
So, what’s new this time around? There’s 60 robots, including the one-eyed Ravage and Soundwave. “Revenge of the Fallen” gobbled up a remarkable 140 terabytes of disk space on the computers of effects house Industrial Light and Magic. By contrast, the first “Transformers” movie took up 15 terabytes and featured about 20 ’bots.
According to di Bonaventura, the scale of the movie has grown by leaps and bounds. “Transformers” bad guy Megatron measured 35 feet while “Revenge of the Fallen” villain Devastator stands 125 feet tall.
Visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar admits he was worried when he first saw the initial designs for “Revenge of the Fallen.” With gargantuan bad boys like Devastator and the Fallen on the loose, he knew he’d have to work extra hard to convince audiences of the size and scope of the giant robots.
“A huge problem for us is portraying to audiences how big our guys are,” he says over the telephone from his office at Industrial Light and Magic. “When you photograph a ’bot against a one- or two-story house, you pan up, and there’s nothing but sky. I call it ‘limbo,’ because you’re not getting any information about scale. We need huge structures to put out guys against.”
Farrar got exactly what he needed from Bethlehem Steel. The f/x whiz was one of the first crew members to visit the shuttered site last February. As soon as he and director Michael Bay got a gander at the plant, they knew they’d found the kind of enormous facility they were looking for.
“It was just simply staggering how wonderful it was in terms of the size of the place,” says Farrar, who was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the first “Transformers.” “Michael’s like a little kid, he’s so super-enthusiastic, and I was excited too. I remember looking at the site and thinking, ‘OK, now we can sell this (illusion).’
“Revenge of the Fallen” kicked off its 84-day production on June 2 in Bethlehem. From there, the production traveled to Philadelphia, White Sands National Park, New Mexico, Jordan and the Giza pyramid complex in Egypt, where co-star John Turturro was allowed the rare opportunity to climb atop one of the pyramids.
Wherever the cast traveled, the robots stayed behind. Since the robotic aliens are added later via computer, none of them were on the set. It’s up to Farrar, in fact, to make sure there’s space in the frame for the big guys to muscle into the action. On location, he arranges for “big, tall window washer poles” to be held up so the camera operators and actors can get a sense of the height of the robots.
“Blocking the robots is just like blocking any other actor,” notes Farrar. “I’m the guy who figures out their positions, where they’re going to move and what they’re going to do. It’s insane, I know, but I can imagine what the robots are going to be doing at any given moment.”
For Farrar and the visual effects guys, the biggest challenge in bringing the ’bots to life is making sure the shape-shifters are nimble.
“They have to feel heavy, but we also want them to have ninja-like movements.” says Farrar. “They can’t move in a slow and boring fashion.”
As has been widely reported, “Revenge of the Fallen” hit a stumbling block when LaBeouf crashed his pickup truck in Los Angeles and busted his hand. After opting to delay surgery, the actor was fitted with a custom-made hand cast and returned to the set where he performed as many of his own stunts as possible. Despite LaBeouf’s accident, Bay was able to keep the movie on schedule and on budget. For a film as massive as “Revenge of the Fallen,” that was no small feat.
“I compare the movie to a combination of ‘Ben Hur’ and ‘Apocalypse Now,’” says Farrar. “(It has) the look, scope and scale unlike most films being shot today. ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ is an adventure movie on a grand scale. This is big movie stuff.”
Although di Bonaventura insists he and Bay haven’t started plotting out another sequel, he admits there’s still many untapped Transformers waiting for their close-ups.
“We didn’t purposely hold back any of the robots,” he says. “There’s 1,000 of them, so we have plenty of choose from. The mythology of the Transformers runs staggeringly deep.”
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