Huge is the best way to describe Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Michael Bay’s sequel to his 2007 film Transformers.
“It’s a big movie,” says ILM’s Scott Farrar, who supervised the visual effects. “Nobody shoots a movie like this anymore. The effects are huge. The locations are huge. The style of the project is huge. It’s a big adventure that travels all over the world.”
As before, the the evil Decepticon robots want to rule the world, and the Autobots are determined to prevent them, with help from a human, Sam Witwicky. And once again, Autobot leader Optimus Prime and the Autobot Bumblebee protect Sam from the Decepticons, but this time they have more company.
In Revenge of the Fallen, another 58 otherworldly robots in a universe of sizes and shapes join the 15 machines from the original Transformers. The robots are more emotional than before, they have more dialog, display more heavy-metal brutality, and interact with the environment more explicitly.
Three studios created the digital effects. ILM created 46 robots, while Digital Domain, the studio owned by Bay and others, created another 13. In addition, Asylum added non-robot effects.
For a detailed look at this work, see Barbara Robertson’s story in the July issue of CGW.