@@LordSlevendesigns were great in bayverse. Finally transformers looked like aliens and not human made robots. I love g1 but on the silver screen we need something more realistic
Imagine it if you'd grown up in the 80s when we didn't wonder when we'd get a Transformers movie.....but IF. I saw the 1986 animated Transformers movie at the theater when I was 5 years old and even then I knew logically that a Transformers movie couldn't ever be anything but a cartoon because a Transformers that looked "real" was LITERALLY impossible in the 80s. I bullshit you not...seven years later when my friends and I saw Jurassic Park the very first thing we all said to each other was "Do you think this means that an actual Transformers movie is something that could happen now?" It was still 14 years away but....the game had changed. It was crazy to see something go from seemingly impossible to possible..
I mean, for all its flaws, the movie did create a whole new massive generation of Transformers fans. Some of them became animators and worked on modern mecha movies we all love and cherish.
@@YISTECHwho cares ?? Maybe because of this filmmakers doesn’t really care to give us the perfect cgi anymore. As long as they deliver the movie than that’s enough. Look at the flash / thor movie recently. Astrocious.
Working for Bay was one of the highlights of my time at ILM. The Transformers movies were before my time, but the dude knows exactly what he wants, never messes you about with unclear feedback and dailies with him were always highly entertaining. Dude would and did approve some shots on almost their first version because he knows when something works. Very rare in a director.
Short answer: Transformers was released during a time where CGI wasn’t used as much in films, so companies were not stretched thin since animation teams were not working on multiple projects, which is why CGI hasn’t been good in general since Infinity War nowadays. Teams are given multiple projects without enough time. The CGI in the Bay films progressively got better because the Transformers movies revived a dying franchise that caught everyone off guard and made everyone want to buy Camaros thanks to product placement, and Bay used real explosions and real locations as opposed to CG explosions and green-screening. He actually filmed the battle of Chicago in Chicago and made the city look like a warzone to entertain us. His crew put effort into the eye candy. Also, these movies fuck
not accurate imo. there's been more cgi and less before and after. it's a director who understood cgi will never look good on it's own. you have to have practical effects for a move to look good. especially long term. dude gets that cgi is for enhancing effects, not the effect itself.
Also the production schedule was more organized and respected for better or for worse (but generally better for VFX). One of the biggest problems with modern movies is that they want to fix the movies on post and they date the release date of the movie years in advance, which gives the VFX artists very little time to finish and polish VFX. For example black panther awful PS2 cutscene like final battle was made in 2 weeks or something like that. Back in the 2000 VFX in post production didn't had the burden of fixing the entire movie if it was working. They also didn't had a hard deadline to deliver at all cost (I don't remember news of studios dating a movie years in advance, at most release windows given expected time for production cycle once it was greenlit and it was common for a film to sleep 6 months to a year, they only announced a date when they were ready to market the movie), which obviously give the opportunity of giving more time to polish the effects if the studio believes in the movie and want to put more money on it. It's ridiculous how rushed VFX today look like. And we can see that comparing to older installment in the same franchises, were older movies look better.
the most common sense one too. People whine about robot screentime a lot but these things are indeed hell to put in the middle of a real moving environment. There's a reason to why every scene with a transformer is iconic in some way as they dont have a lot of scenes/time to make with to spare
a very important and overlooked factor is the style of lighting that the film used / what the style of 2007 was. contrast was extremely heavy, blacks were crushed, highlights were blown out. the cinematographer was not afraid to utilize shadows. compare this to many modern films and cameras that can capture an extremely wide dynamic range. many blockbuster directors and color artists tend to gravitate towards a low-contrast, flat look. the harsh lighting techniques of the Transformers films only help the direction and the visual effects. it truly takes a team to execute realism.
Something I've always love about this movie is the animation of the transformation. They're not these awkward transitions where a jumble of parts all move at once to create the robot form. Instead, the animators took their time by making parts move and settle before the next one does the same. It gives so much clarity and detail so that the audience knows exactly where each part goes when the bots transform.
There's so much inertia and really appropriate blocks/segments to the transformation. Like when Optimus transformed on the highway while driving, it started in large chunks with heavy movement that planted him into the ground below him, then those chunks transformed into smaller segments which in turn had their own layer of intricate details in transformation. It was SO smart.
Yeah, each transformation was basically based on motion and intent. Unlike older transformers media, they didn't have one transformation. Every single time they transform is basically unique
ROTB dropped the ball hard. They should’ve made the toys in advance and gussied them up a bit for the movie. That way there are actual transformation schemes to work with!
Also the sfx are just nice on the ears as well. I can't tell you how many times I rewound a segment from any of the movies just to listen to the transformation sounds.
@@cosmicreaverkassadin1143 Yeah, where the hell did that 200million dolar budget go too??? Dark of the Moon cost around 195Million and came out back in 2011!!!! as still looks better than Rise of the Beasts with 2023 technology.
@@aashishdhiman5847it’s nostalgic, but objectively speaking, the Amazing Spider Man films have the best graphics. Not even the MCU Spider-Man movies look anywhere near that good.
Also, Revenge of the Sith in 2005, the opening space battle and General Grevious still look incredible today and better than most modern blockbusters, which is crazy because Attack of the Clones looks like dogshit, ROTS was an insane step up
There's not a single thing I'd change in this movie. It's an absolute perfection and it brilliantly captures everything I'm nostalgic about those times. It's every bit as cool today as it was when I was a 6 year old witnessing it for the first time.
Bay is an absolute master of direction for VFX. The fact that he did 3 movies in native stereo 3D with so many different camera types still blows my mind.
i always loved the "CLING CLANG PLING CLAN" metal sounds the Transformers made wilhe fighting or doing anything in general, because it really felt like a giant alien robot and the sounds are just satisfying.
the metallic reflections and blending of blue screen was really good in a lot of these movies. Also it helps when theres so much visual pollution in every shot that you cant tell exactly whats going on until you rewatch it 8 times.
@@speedyazi5029 The 2nd and 3rd films got better, the 4th film didn't improve but stayed the same level, was still amazing, and 5th was a slight drop off in how good the CGI was but it was still really good.
The opening scene blew our minds, and we were grown ups already. But the cool factor that broke the scale for me was the roller skater Decepticon splitting a bus in half. That has to be one of the coolest scenes in cinema ever. The script, on the other hand...
When I was a wee boy, this was the coolest thing ever. The realism was something so strong I never even questioned how they did it. I just saw it and accepted there were live-action models or something in the shots with people but my god this is somehow cooler…
As someone born in 2000 I was so obsessed with this movie growing up I used to rent the DVD from the library and then go through the transformation sequences frame by frame trying to track where all the pieces were going and how the transformation worked and felt. Almost *20 years later* and it still looks amazing!
I revisited the featurettes for the 2nd film a while ago. It was the heyday of BTS material. I realized the CG of these movies was a monumental effort when they said the model of the villain Devastator was so absurdly large it would crash the computer if it tried to open the entire thing. They essentially had to build, if not animate him, in parts.
You know what mad props on bay with using practical effects for things that could of been cgi, *cough* Snyder and disney *cough* like say what you will about bay himself but he prioritized the cgi in things that needed it
This movie and the next 3 are near and dear to my heart because despite whatever was being said about them, they were confident in what they did being something worthwhile. Heck, it even inspired me to go to college to be a film major.
This movie shocked me when it came out. Unbelievably life like and stands up to this day. Looks great in 4K on OLED and is better than movies out in the past couple of years for visuals.
This movie got me into transformers and by far my favorite part of it was always the transformations It was super cool to see someone talk about the cgi
This is still my favorite movie of my entire life and seein' all the tricks they did to achieve that realism, it's mind blowing and it makes me appreciate even more
Yes, finally. A video praising Transformers CGI! Yeah im a H U G E Transformers fan but i genuinely think the Transformers movies had some of the best CGI ever! And keep in mind. The first movie and ROTF came out in 2007 and 2009. That. Is. Unreal!! Compared to movies now? Not even CLOSE. God knows what modern CGI has turned into now
I'm kinda just glad to see someone having good things to say about this movie. This was one of my favorite movies in my teens. Everyone shits on Michael Bay movies and the excessive use of CG, but the artists deserve all the credit in the world
What I love is that the difference in cleanliness on the characters between robot and vehicle mode works in more ways than one. On one hand, it helps the animators/artists dealing with the shiny, reflecting surfaces in rendering, but it also adds to the fact the Cybertronians are "robots in disguise", so naturally there would be something about their bodies that allows their disguised forms to look shiny and clean, or at least depending on the type of vehicle they scanned if it was already dirty/rusty or not as shiny, then the robot mode is the real them with all the scratches, dings, etc. One theory is that it's basically a holographic projection, similar to how they can "scan" a vehicle form and know all the ins and outs of it and replicate it perfectly. Can't be in disguise when you turn into a Camaro that looks like it had a giant wad of steel wool dragged all over it with grease poured on after.
The exterior of the vehicle and the way they transform in the movies is kind of explained with the "ultra dense liquid metal core". They're absorbing and reforming parts into and out of themselves so the battle damage doesn't show in vehicle mode
I think is cheap tbh, is clear that the animators had a limitation with reflective surfaces in the robot mode so they decided to dirty them up, but the car manufacturers sponsors can't have their cars dirty in the movie, so they never bothered with the inconsistency.
Just rewatched this last month and was blown away At how Much Better it looked in 2007 than modern movies. Glad to see I wasn’t just blinded by nostalgia. The team that worked on this film were miracle workers, and it goes to show that focusing on quality and hard work delivers a much better and more memorable product!
I realized that the transformers looked way more scratched up in robot mode than in vehicle mode when I was like 9, but I didn't really know why thanks explaining.
This really makes you appreciate these things even more. I knew that it was an ordeal to make this thing possible, but I had no clue just hire Herculean a task this was. Bravo to the people who made this happen.
This is an incredible video about the most underrated piece of CGI ever! Great job. Maybe make a video about how Age or Extinction and later films dropped the ball on the effects? It just never looked as photo-real after 4.
Age of extinction looked even better. Each film got better visually. The last knight had a strange mix though. Some shots looks unbelievable and others blend way too much with the background
Transformers 1,2,3 for me are one of the best looking movies ever made , with mindblowing CGI and music and sound design.I love these movies so much , and I dont care about critics.
I was 18 years old when this first movie came out and it blew my mind (just as Jurassic Park and Starship Troopers did when I was a kid). One year later I went to collage (3D graphics and animation was my major) and we talked alot in class about this movie. That was what we wanted to reach and did alot of analyzing on how they were made. But 1.8 million polygons... cant even get it into my head lol. So yeah this movie was important for me. Love the designs, amazing cgi and just a fun movie. Rare these days.
👉 To try everything Brilliant has to offer for free for a full 30 days by clicking brilliant.org/CGY/. You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription. People love to hate this film, but one thing that's undeniable is how visually flawless it is - and the efforts the filmmakers and VFX artists went to to get it so flawless. Because, all of little things we discuss (like how Bay specifically framed the robots in a very particular way and how this had a *massive* impact on their realism), really shows there’s more to this film than first meets the eye (I’ll see myself out). But what do you guys think? Is this movie actually "bad" or have the sequels just “tainted” people’s perception of this film?
It's absolutely CRIMINAL that the golden compass won the oscar for visual effects over transformers. Not only has that movie been forgotten, the visual effects don't even hold up today
I grew up watching Transformers 1&2 and Star trek 2009.. Now I work for the very studio that created them. NICE (one of my supervisors on my previous show was a supervisor on startrek 09. damn)
I always appreciated the fact Bay himself said he wanted the transformers to be agile, jump and move quickly in battles. I really appreciated that element on the Bay transformers franchise regardless of its storytelling.
The CGI artists masterfully brought these designs to life, but that’s different than the designs themselves. It’s kinda like an idea versus its execution. The cluttered designs make many characters, especially decepticons, hard to recognize, and in action scenes the close up shots along with the designs make it difficult to understand what’s going on. I personally have a soft spot for the Bay designs but so understand why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea
@@fegreninja7197 every character is completely distinct from one another. It's impossible to get them mixed up. They all have different shapes and sizes
@@novustalks7525 I will say that the silhouettes for the main cast are distinctive enough to stand out, and I’ve watched the Bay movies so many times I can recognize everyone. But for general audiences, 5-10 characters are recognizable and everyone else fades into a mosaic of gunmetal grey shrapnel, most prominently with the Decepticons. Blackout and Grindor are literally the same guy. Onslaught is just Long Haul with a different alt mode we barely see. In fact, Long Haul’s cgi model is used countless times in the movies, with little changes in color or design. I won’t deny that that G1 and Transformers in general likes to reuse character designs for different characters, but at least they gave each of them distinct color schemes instead of desaturated greens and greys. At the end of the day, I enjoyed most of the bay movies and, like I said before, I have a soft spot for the designs. I just think it’d be hard to recognize who’s fighting who when characters blend in with each other.
People hate on these movies but learning about all of the technical work that went into them makes me defend them every time. We didn't know how good we had it.
I went to school for digital animation and rigs are always incredibly finicky to make and use, so I've always wondered how the hell they were able to build a rig for these robot models that transform their shape and function. Most rigs would just break or behave erratically if you tried to do this. This is the first video that has ever explained how they did this!
I was 20 years old when the news about Transformers movie came out. I was debating with my friend as to how they'll pull it off. I thought it would suck. When I watched the trailer, I went on to watch it at least 5 times to believe what I was seeing. I'm glad this movie happened.
17:58 These movies almost made the animators' computers become real transformers just so the damn thing could strangle Bay for putting them through this much hell
Black magic doesn´t stop considering how toy designers nowadays make these concepts possible in real life, or at least achieve unbelievable approximations, great vid!
Michael Bay let them cook, and they COOKED. Understanding how to mix real and fake and creating proper shot schedules and layouts to get that integration done was this movie's greatest success.
Never understood why people hated the transformers movies, because they were so great and their CGI is still untouched. It’s one of the best CGI and action movies of all time, at least the first trilogy. Optimus prime is still the most badass character of all time with unparalleled coolness. The humor was great too and man the action is just perfect. Me and my brothers anyways loved to watch them together. Just wished Micheal bay would have invested more time in the story to make it more fluent with less plot holes, then maybe transformers 5 wouldn’t have been a flop and we would have gotten more movies. Still the bay verse will always be one of my all time favorite franchises.
Great video! You hit the nail on the head here. I dont envy the poor souls that had to work on this, but I really respect their ability to find a solution to every problem that came their way! They created a masterpiece of VFX that people still talk about!
I still remember when someone was driving a Optimus prime truck and passed my family while we were on the highway it was cool as fuck but I didn’t think to record it at the time so now it’s just a distant memory for me
On the point of thier speed, the amount of twists and thrusts of thier individuall metal parts during each of those "unrealistically" rapid battles actually also works to thier favor: it looks as if they are shifting balance, reducing air pressure, boosting forward, airbreaking etc. to where it feels like perfectly meshed mechanical parts unleashing maximum potential force and velocity without exerting excessive strain on the entire construction. They move like a truly living, reshaping robot feels like it should: like a rampaging beast.
To me the most fascinating and impressive thing about these movies is how detailed the bots are and how they manipulate every single part to make them transform or even just basic movements. A 3D animator's worst nightmare for sure. But they did a phenomenal job, especially for 2007 when CGI wasn't anywhere near the fidelity possible today and likely most of the tools that made things easier did not exist.
I remember as a kid I had the bright idea to watch Optimus Prime's transformations so that I could put my giant toy of him back into car form since I lost the instructions. Sadly, it didn't work
The absurdity of the est. movie budget for Red One being $250 million is striking, especially considering that this movie had a budget of only est. $150 million and that was 17 years ago...
visual effect of this movie have to be COOL as they possible. just few days ago I just talk with friends about what makes Kamen Rider (basically kids show with rubber suit + plastic armor and fireworks) from 20 years ago more likable than Hollywood today, because show like that doesn't care about logic and realism, just all hands to create the coolest scene as they possible, meanwhile Hollywood tough have that value in the past, they grew into the opposite direction by making everything more ugly and awkward as possible because that's how real people and physics will react in that situation in real world.
It also helps that where as Hollywood tries to be the next 'best X' 'most innovative Y' 'best screenplay' etc all at the same time, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, etc just try to be the best Kamen rider/Sentai/etc they can be and to make the most out of what tools they have.
The scene with Optimus and the bus is incredible. In photos it looks real. The whole film is nearly flawless as far as how it looks. The human special effects are the only bits that can look pants.
I understand people that prefer the OG designs. I get it. But I always prefered the Bay designs. I loved watching every single piece moving somewhere so that another piece could move elsewhere and becoming this extremely complex design and animation. I love the transformations and the way they move around in the set.
i was just rewatching transformers last week and i was thinking about how 2007 movie looks better than like every new movie today... its also actually fun to watch
This movie from 2007 looks better than 90% of the big-budget movies we have today
I may not like the designs of the transformers but I can't deny the cg was amazing
Nope. Cheap ass cgi. Looked bad then and didn’t age well at all.
@@LordSlevendesigns were great in bayverse. Finally transformers looked like aliens and not human made robots.
I love g1 but on the silver screen we need something more realistic
@@nathanreddent2427sure sure little Timmy, go watch your stupid a$$ flash movie
@@nathanreddent2427 Nope
We took Transformers 1-3 for granted. I rewatched them a couple months ago. Still incredibly fun.
4 is pretty good too
@@ProfessorArt1 4 is actually good but the disappearance of Sam and the old Autobot team ruined the mood for a lot of fans
The sequels are terrible.
@shinndig1293 the third one was underrated, tbf and ROTF has a lot of great moments.
@@shinndig1293 Disagree
Michael Bay really nailed the cool factor, because for me, a 7 year old kid in 2007, this was literally the coolest thing I've seen in my life
Imagine it if you'd grown up in the 80s when we didn't wonder when we'd get a Transformers movie.....but IF. I saw the 1986 animated Transformers movie at the theater when I was 5 years old and even then I knew logically that a Transformers movie couldn't ever be anything but a cartoon because a Transformers that looked "real" was LITERALLY impossible in the 80s. I bullshit you not...seven years later when my friends and I saw Jurassic Park the very first thing we all said to each other was "Do you think this means that an actual Transformers movie is something that could happen now?" It was still 14 years away but....the game had changed. It was crazy to see something go from seemingly impossible to possible..
I would be scared of the autobots and decepticons if i was 7 years old watching this movie
I mean, for all its flaws, the movie did create a whole new massive generation of Transformers fans. Some of them became animators and worked on modern mecha movies we all love and cherish.
It's still after all that years.
@@davidsavage5630 that's awesome
It's absolutely insane that none of the Bayverse films won Oscars for visual effects, soundtrack or sound effects.
Who cares. We know now that the Oscar's hold no weight.
Realistic CGI doesn’t distract me on how bad this movie is.
@@marcusaguilar874 Which part of "Oscar for visual effect" did you miss?
@@marcusaguilar874 Tell us you're stupid without telling us
@@YISTECHwho cares ?? Maybe because of this filmmakers doesn’t really care to give us the perfect cgi anymore. As long as they deliver the movie than that’s enough. Look at the flash / thor movie recently. Astrocious.
Working for Bay was one of the highlights of my time at ILM. The Transformers movies were before my time, but the dude knows exactly what he wants, never messes you about with unclear feedback and dailies with him were always highly entertaining. Dude would and did approve some shots on almost their first version because he knows when something works. Very rare in a director.
Indeed a rare quality im starting to appreciate now with the current state of studios and their being over worked.
fr, and now he's going to make a Skibidi Toilet movie LMAO
@@dkkanofkash8798 honestly i deadass might watch it if it ever does come out💀
That's awesome dude
thanks for the hard talented work!
People don't hate CGI, they hate half-assed concepts and shoddy craftsmanship.
No, I hate CGI. It's great for video games, but it looks like shit on screen.
@@OffensiveJestr you basically repeated what the OP said. you basically hate half assed concepts and shoddy craftmanship
It is still a crime that this didn't win the visual effects Oscar.
It’s doesn’t matter, atleast the movie win our childhood’s heart❤
I had to look up what won that year.. Golden Compass??! Wow, that is a crime.
@@0t3n4layf” I will kill them all”
Even the original soundtrack or the sound design not winning an Oscar is a massive crime.
Meanwhile Golden Compass won, and that film aged like fucking milk.
Short answer: Transformers was released during a time where CGI wasn’t used as much in films, so companies were not stretched thin since animation teams were not working on multiple projects, which is why CGI hasn’t been good in general since Infinity War nowadays. Teams are given multiple projects without enough time.
The CGI in the Bay films progressively got better because the Transformers movies revived a dying franchise that caught everyone off guard and made everyone want to buy Camaros thanks to product placement, and Bay used real explosions and real locations as opposed to CG explosions and green-screening. He actually filmed the battle of Chicago in Chicago and made the city look like a warzone to entertain us. His crew put effort into the eye candy.
Also, these movies fuck
The latest Transformers reboot movie released last yr had noticeably poor CGI than this 2007 one.
Disagree with the CGI getting better and better. The 4 and 5 movies had bad CGI in many shots.
not accurate imo. there's been more cgi and less before and after. it's a director who understood cgi will never look good on it's own. you have to have practical effects for a move to look good. especially long term. dude gets that cgi is for enhancing effects, not the effect itself.
Also the production schedule was more organized and respected for better or for worse (but generally better for VFX). One of the biggest problems with modern movies is that they want to fix the movies on post and they date the release date of the movie years in advance, which gives the VFX artists very little time to finish and polish VFX. For example black panther awful PS2 cutscene like final battle was made in 2 weeks or something like that.
Back in the 2000 VFX in post production didn't had the burden of fixing the entire movie if it was working. They also didn't had a hard deadline to deliver at all cost (I don't remember news of studios dating a movie years in advance, at most release windows given expected time for production cycle once it was greenlit and it was common for a film to sleep 6 months to a year, they only announced a date when they were ready to market the movie), which obviously give the opportunity of giving more time to polish the effects if the studio believes in the movie and want to put more money on it.
It's ridiculous how rushed VFX today look like. And we can see that comparing to older installment in the same franchises, were older movies look better.
@@angelsunemtoledocabllero5801 the bay films had really good cgi. especially the first 3. 4-5 was still good, but i rolled my eyes with nanobots
This is by far the best retrospective on the process behind Transformers 2007's cgi, glad I was able to help 🤘
the most common sense one too. People whine about robot screentime a lot but these things are indeed hell to put in the middle of a real moving environment. There's a reason to why every scene with a transformer is iconic in some way as they dont have a lot of scenes/time to make with to spare
Ur a g lad
Theorymus coming in clutch with the behind the scenes footage, I'm 100% sure that without you most the beyverse's history would've been lost forever
The goat theorymus💯
GOD!!!!!
a very important and overlooked factor is the style of lighting that the film used / what the style of 2007 was. contrast was extremely heavy, blacks were crushed, highlights were blown out. the cinematographer was not afraid to utilize shadows. compare this to many modern films and cameras that can capture an extremely wide dynamic range. many blockbuster directors and color artists tend to gravitate towards a low-contrast, flat look. the harsh lighting techniques of the Transformers films only help the direction and the visual effects. it truly takes a team to execute realism.
That kind of image has always been signature to Michael Bay, as far back as Bad Boys and still used all the way up to AmbuLAnce.
@@anthonyrousseau8050 maybe that's why Spielberg and co. chose him to helm the project in the first place, who knows
High contrast is something many games have stepped away from too for the worse. Battlefield 3 vs 2042 for example.
i wish this high contrast looks was still utilized in modern movies and video games
@@auralian1428very good comparison
Something I've always love about this movie is the animation of the transformation.
They're not these awkward transitions where a jumble of parts all move at once to create the robot form. Instead, the animators took their time by making parts move and settle before the next one does the same. It gives so much clarity and detail so that the audience knows exactly where each part goes when the bots transform.
There's so much inertia and really appropriate blocks/segments to the transformation. Like when Optimus transformed on the highway while driving, it started in large chunks with heavy movement that planted him into the ground below him, then those chunks transformed into smaller segments which in turn had their own layer of intricate details in transformation. It was SO smart.
Yeah, each transformation was basically based on motion and intent. Unlike older transformers media, they didn't have one transformation. Every single time they transform is basically unique
ROTB dropped the ball hard. They should’ve made the toys in advance and gussied them up a bit for the movie. That way there are actual transformation schemes to work with!
Also the sfx are just nice on the ears as well. I can't tell you how many times I rewound a segment from any of the movies just to listen to the transformation sounds.
Realistic CGI doesn’t distract me on how bad this movie is.
In my oppinion every Bayverse Transformers movie had FANTASTIC CGI
it's a fact!
The best tbh. The latest TF rise of the beast was garbage
@@cosmicreaverkassadin1143 Agreed, that movie might as well be called Transformers: Rise of the Generic
@@spiderman-2416 cgi was just horrendous and abysmal not gonna lie
@@cosmicreaverkassadin1143 Yeah, where the hell did that 200million dolar budget go too??? Dark of the Moon cost around 195Million and came out back in 2011!!!! as still looks better than Rise of the Beasts with 2023 technology.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Transformers 1 were amazing CGI experiences in 2007.
Spiderman 3 also came in 2007 and it's CGI looks better than newer Spiderman movies.
@@aashishdhiman5847it’s nostalgic, but objectively speaking, the Amazing Spider Man films have the best graphics. Not even the MCU Spider-Man movies look anywhere near that good.
they pushed the realism, it was stylish af
Also, Revenge of the Sith in 2005, the opening space battle and General Grevious still look incredible today and better than most modern blockbusters, which is crazy because Attack of the Clones looks like dogshit, ROTS was an insane step up
@@Teeheehee093attack of the clones looks good what do you mean?
There's not a single thing I'd change in this movie. It's an absolute perfection and it brilliantly captures everything I'm nostalgic about those times. It's every bit as cool today as it was when I was a 6 year old witnessing it for the first time.
Bay is an absolute master of direction for VFX. The fact that he did 3 movies in native stereo 3D with so many different camera types still blows my mind.
Too bad he isn’t a playwright
There’s a reason why top directors like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg praise and respect Michael
@@wifine1951 good point. And both of those directors are also massive geniuses when it comes to use of stereoscopic film
@@wifine1951imagine if he got good writer on top of his god like visual effect
one of the editors even said in one of the interviews that the amount of editing they did on this movie, even made the PC crash LMAOO
that was for devestator on transformers revenge of the fallen
i always loved the "CLING CLANG PLING CLAN" metal sounds the Transformers made wilhe fighting or doing anything in general, because it really felt like a giant alien robot and the sounds are just satisfying.
Yea that’s like vfx right? It’s like lightsaber sounds in Star Wars it just makes it cool as fuck
@@kimicrewe4443 it would be sfx and yeah it adds a whole new layer to the experience
I was a huge Transformers fan when I was a little boy. It still blows my mind that how great and exiting this movie was and still is.
the metallic reflections and blending of blue screen was really good in a lot of these movies. Also it helps when theres so much visual pollution in every shot that you cant tell exactly whats going on until you rewatch it 8 times.
Visual pollution is a good term. I’m going to use it in the future
Sounds like a skill issue
Honest trailers ahh opinion
FINALLY someone talks about the insane transformers cgi
Love them or hate them ABSOLUTELY no one can say the cgi was lacking in the bayverse
It lacked after the first film. The 4th and 5th were globs of machines with zero actual presence or power that they had in TF1 which is incredible.
@@speedyazi5029disagree cus the cgi was still better than most cgi movies
@@speedyazi5029 The 2nd and 3rd films got better, the 4th film didn't improve but stayed the same level, was still amazing, and 5th was a slight drop off in how good the CGI was but it was still really good.
@@speedyazi5029TF4 had better cgi than this. Each film improved on it.
Only the forst3 films were done by ILM, one of the best VFX studios out there. Everything afterward was done by a different studio
10:38 "They really did fly a plane through a building-" JESUS my brain went places that planes should never usually go 😂
"Mr President, a Transformer has hit the second tower"
To be fair, that is a very decepticon thing to do.
They hit the Pentagon D:
The Transformers movies really are some of ILM's best work.
heh especially when devistator's rendering destroyed all their PCs
0:17 Pretty sure the CGI begins where the giant bi-pedal robot is.
Except there's a good to fair chance some shots are full CG but you might not have realised it.
every shot of a helicopter in the air from above is CGI
The opening scene blew our minds, and we were grown ups already. But the cool factor that broke the scale for me was the roller skater Decepticon splitting a bus in half. That has to be one of the coolest scenes in cinema ever. The script, on the other hand...
Script wasn’t even that bad…shia was good
Bayformers is like porn, you don't watch it for the plot
@@artLopez24 Sorry, I'll agree Shia was good, but the script was awful.
Totally agree. The trilogy would be perfect and coherent if they put the effort on written as they put on CGI.
His name is bonecrusher
When I was a wee boy, this was the coolest thing ever. The realism was something so strong I never even questioned how they did it. I just saw it and accepted there were live-action models or something in the shots with people but my god this is somehow cooler…
babe wakeup new cgy upload
Love your work man
Is CGY Gav from Slomo Guys?
As someone born in 2000 I was so obsessed with this movie growing up I used to rent the DVD from the library and then go through the transformation sequences frame by frame trying to track where all the pieces were going and how the transformation worked and felt. Almost *20 years later* and it still looks amazing!
I revisited the featurettes for the 2nd film a while ago. It was the heyday of BTS material. I realized the CG of these movies was a monumental effort when they said the model of the villain Devastator was so absurdly large it would crash the computer if it tried to open the entire thing. They essentially had to build, if not animate him, in parts.
When trying to render Devastator’s transformation, a computer actually melted in their office
Transformers 2007 definitely will stand the test of time....Epic !
You know what mad props on bay with using practical effects for things that could of been cgi, *cough* Snyder and disney *cough* like say what you will about bay himself but he prioritized the cgi in things that needed it
Zack Uses Practical effects doe…..
@@RydellAggin12 rewatch the mediocre slop that was ZSJL and you’ll see hundreds of things that did not need to be cg
@@harrylane4what is the unnecessary hate for? He literally made the mech suit practically
This movie and the next 3 are near and dear to my heart because despite whatever was being said about them, they were confident in what they did being something worthwhile. Heck, it even inspired me to go to college to be a film major.
i just started internally crying when you mentioned the buffed & shiny cars & THUS the massive pressure put onto the vfx team.
This video is a love letter to Transformers 2007. I love it.
This movie shocked me when it came out. Unbelievably life like and stands up to this day. Looks great in 4K on OLED and is better than movies out in the past couple of years for visuals.
The desert scene with the military vs the decept. lives in my head rent free. That scene is so well made honestly
This movie got me into transformers and by far my favorite part of it was always the transformations
It was super cool to see someone talk about the cgi
This is still my favorite movie of my entire life and seein' all the tricks they did to achieve that realism, it's mind blowing and it makes me appreciate even more
Yes, finally. A video praising Transformers CGI! Yeah im a H U G E Transformers fan but i genuinely think the Transformers movies had some of the best CGI ever! And keep in mind. The first movie and ROTF came out in 2007 and 2009. That. Is. Unreal!! Compared to movies now? Not even CLOSE. God knows what modern CGI has turned into now
to a sh*t. Inlike back in 2007 :/
The bit in Transformers 1 where the robots are standing on the dam talking... Still some of the best CGI I have ever seen
I'm kinda just glad to see someone having good things to say about this movie. This was one of my favorite movies in my teens. Everyone shits on Michael Bay movies and the excessive use of CG, but the artists deserve all the credit in the world
Its comforting to hear that also in a big production like this they had to adjust shaders per-scene.
Great video.
What I love is that the difference in cleanliness on the characters between robot and vehicle mode works in more ways than one.
On one hand, it helps the animators/artists dealing with the shiny, reflecting surfaces in rendering, but it also adds to the fact the Cybertronians are "robots in disguise", so naturally there would be something about their bodies that allows their disguised forms to look shiny and clean, or at least depending on the type of vehicle they scanned if it was already dirty/rusty or not as shiny, then the robot mode is the real them with all the scratches, dings, etc. One theory is that it's basically a holographic projection, similar to how they can "scan" a vehicle form and know all the ins and outs of it and replicate it perfectly. Can't be in disguise when you turn into a Camaro that looks like it had a giant wad of steel wool dragged all over it with grease poured on after.
The exterior of the vehicle and the way they transform in the movies is kind of explained with the "ultra dense liquid metal core". They're absorbing and reforming parts into and out of themselves so the battle damage doesn't show in vehicle mode
I think is cheap tbh, is clear that the animators had a limitation with reflective surfaces in the robot mode so they decided to dirty them up, but the car manufacturers sponsors can't have their cars dirty in the movie, so they never bothered with the inconsistency.
@@CoracaoAcidental98 Did you watch the video in regards to the looks of the transformers?
Just rewatched this last month and was blown away At how Much Better it looked in 2007 than modern movies. Glad to see I wasn’t just blinded by nostalgia. The team that worked on this film were miracle workers, and it goes to show that focusing on quality and hard work delivers a much better and more memorable product!
I realized that the transformers looked way more scratched up in robot mode than in vehicle mode when I was like 9, but I didn't really know why thanks explaining.
The compositing on this film is still some of the best ever done. You can tell ILM really took the time and care to craft these comps.
I see why this movie had so many product placements the budget must had been INSANE to pull all this off
All I remember is that I watched this movie with my jaw to the floor. I was mesmerised with the amount and quality of the CGI.
"But if Michael Bay wants super cool ninja fights, then Michael Bay gets super cool ninja fights" lol
This really makes you appreciate these things even more. I knew that it was an ordeal to make this thing possible, but I had no clue just hire Herculean a task this was.
Bravo to the people who made this happen.
These films were and still are the peak of cgi. Very few filks before looked this good, and few after reached these heights again
Finally a video on this. I always thought that this film stood out so damn much because they somehow made it all look SO REAL
THIS HERE IS THE BEST REASON why we don't need AI video generation (which is a cardinal frickin sin if i do say so myself)
This is an incredible video about the most underrated piece of CGI ever! Great job. Maybe make a video about how Age or Extinction and later films dropped the ball on the effects? It just never looked as photo-real after 4.
Age of extinction looked even better. Each film got better visually. The last knight had a strange mix though. Some shots looks unbelievable and others blend way too much with the background
Transformers 1,2,3 for me are one of the best looking movies ever made , with mindblowing CGI and music and sound design.I love these movies so much , and I dont care about critics.
@@marekkos3513 bruh left 4
I was 18 years old when this first movie came out and it blew my mind (just as Jurassic Park and Starship Troopers did when I was a kid). One year later I went to collage (3D graphics and animation was my major) and we talked alot in class about this movie. That was what we wanted to reach and did alot of analyzing on how they were made. But 1.8 million polygons... cant even get it into my head lol.
So yeah this movie was important for me. Love the designs, amazing cgi and just a fun movie. Rare these days.
👉 To try everything Brilliant has to offer for free for a full 30 days by clicking brilliant.org/CGY/. You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
People love to hate this film, but one thing that's undeniable is how visually flawless it is - and the efforts the filmmakers and VFX artists went to to get it so flawless.
Because, all of little things we discuss (like how Bay specifically framed the robots in a very particular way and how this had a *massive* impact on their realism), really shows there’s more to this film than first meets the eye (I’ll see myself out).
But what do you guys think? Is this movie actually "bad" or have the sequels just “tainted” people’s perception of this film?
It's absolutely CRIMINAL that the golden compass won the oscar for visual effects over transformers. Not only has that movie been forgotten, the visual effects don't even hold up today
I grew up watching Transformers 1&2 and Star trek 2009.. Now I work for the very studio that created them. NICE (one of my supervisors on my previous show was a supervisor on startrek 09. damn)
2000-2010 was probably the best time for cinema. We had pretty HUGE groundbreaking movies. We got LOTR, Transformers, PotC and more
I always felt like 2000’s / early 2010’s movies had a look to them that was just great
I think the fact the vehicle forms are so clean REALLY help tell the Audience that "Thats a Transformer"
Please make a video on Pasific Rim. Another movie with phenomenal CGI that looks better than most the big-budget movies we see today
Editor:"sir, I'm a bit struggling to make this scene not looks like CGI"
Michael bay:"add explosion"
5:09 that just explain what im confused almost 20 years of how did TF they turn into shiny brand new cars if they got all that battle damage
This M. Bay Transformers will remain as the best CGI works in movie forever & also one of the best CGI cinematography
1:00 instructions unclear, my jeans are now selling for $20 on eBay
I always appreciated the fact Bay himself said he wanted the transformers to be agile, jump and move quickly in battles. I really appreciated that element on the Bay transformers franchise regardless of its storytelling.
was the first Transformers anything i ever Saw, so cool to see a video on it,
Also Great to See the Scenes from Godzilla movies here too.
Not only the CGI was outstanding, also the practical effects and stunts. Many explosions and crashed cars were very real
I can never understand how people can possibly complain about the designs. They're so detailed and realistic that you can almost touch them
The CGI artists masterfully brought these designs to life, but that’s different than the designs themselves. It’s kinda like an idea versus its execution. The cluttered designs make many characters, especially decepticons, hard to recognize, and in action scenes the close up shots along with the designs make it difficult to understand what’s going on. I personally have a soft spot for the Bay designs but so understand why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea
@@fegreninja7197 every character is completely distinct from one another. It's impossible to get them mixed up. They all have different shapes and sizes
@@novustalks7525 I will say that the silhouettes for the main cast are distinctive enough to stand out, and I’ve watched the Bay movies so many times I can recognize everyone. But for general audiences, 5-10 characters are recognizable and everyone else fades into a mosaic of gunmetal grey shrapnel, most prominently with the Decepticons. Blackout and Grindor are literally the same guy. Onslaught is just Long Haul with a different alt mode we barely see. In fact, Long Haul’s cgi model is used countless times in the movies, with little changes in color or design. I won’t deny that that G1 and Transformers in general likes to reuse character designs for different characters, but at least they gave each of them distinct color schemes instead of desaturated greens and greys.
At the end of the day, I enjoyed most of the bay movies and, like I said before, I have a soft spot for the designs. I just think it’d be hard to recognize who’s fighting who when characters blend in with each other.
I still get goose bumps from watching the short clips of transformers more than even watching the whole avengers series
People hate on these movies but learning about all of the technical work that went into them makes me defend them every time. We didn't know how good we had it.
I went to school for digital animation and rigs are always incredibly finicky to make and use, so I've always wondered how the hell they were able to build a rig for these robot models that transform their shape and function. Most rigs would just break or behave erratically if you tried to do this. This is the first video that has ever explained how they did this!
I was 20 years old when the news about Transformers movie came out. I was debating with my friend as to how they'll pull it off. I thought it would suck. When I watched the trailer, I went on to watch it at least 5 times to believe what I was seeing. I'm glad this movie happened.
17:58 These movies almost made the animators' computers become real transformers just so the damn thing could strangle Bay for putting them through this much hell
Black magic doesn´t stop considering how toy designers nowadays make these concepts possible in real life, or at least achieve unbelievable approximations, great vid!
Just recently rewatched the bayverse movies and god damn they still look better if not more better than new movies coming out
I love this video so much, finally someone fully dives into this in a video!
This was genuinly a great video, earned my sub
Michael Bay let them cook, and they COOKED. Understanding how to mix real and fake and creating proper shot schedules and layouts to get that integration done was this movie's greatest success.
People shit on bay for the explosives but if it weren’t for his crazy realistic explosive the weight and danger of the transformers is really felt
Never understood why people hated the transformers movies, because they were so great and their CGI is still untouched. It’s one of the best CGI and action movies of all time, at least the first trilogy. Optimus prime is still the most badass character of all time with unparalleled coolness. The humor was great too and man the action is just perfect. Me and my brothers anyways loved to watch them together. Just wished Micheal bay would have invested more time in the story to make it more fluent with less plot holes, then maybe transformers 5 wouldn’t have been a flop and we would have gotten more movies. Still the bay verse will always be one of my all time favorite franchises.
Great video! You hit the nail on the head here. I dont envy the poor souls that had to work on this, but I really respect their ability to find a solution to every problem that came their way! They created a masterpiece of VFX that people still talk about!
It's so bizarre this video came out around the same time i got nostalgic about this film😆
I still remember when someone was driving a Optimus prime truck and passed my family while we were on the highway it was cool as fuck but I didn’t think to record it at the time so now it’s just a distant memory for me
“Load up your eBay page and loose your trousers” got me dying 😂
😂😂😂😂
On the point of thier speed, the amount of twists and thrusts of thier individuall metal parts during each of those "unrealistically" rapid battles actually also works to thier favor: it looks as if they are shifting balance, reducing air pressure, boosting forward, airbreaking etc. to where it feels like perfectly meshed mechanical parts unleashing maximum potential force and velocity without exerting excessive strain on the entire construction. They move like a truly living, reshaping robot feels like it should: like a rampaging beast.
the first transformers movie made me want to go to career as a 3d artist... that scorponok attack was too good
To me the most fascinating and impressive thing about these movies is how detailed the bots are and how they manipulate every single part to make them transform or even just basic movements.
A 3D animator's worst nightmare for sure. But they did a phenomenal job, especially for 2007 when CGI wasn't anywhere near the fidelity possible today and likely most of the tools that made things easier did not exist.
How the HELL did they lose to Golden Compass?
🤔
I love how now basically the robots came to like by stop motion methods through PCs
I remember as a kid I had the bright idea to watch Optimus Prime's transformations so that I could put my giant toy of him back into car form since I lost the instructions. Sadly, it didn't work
That idea is actually smart!
@@Ali-Adamantium Thank you!
The absurdity of the est. movie budget for Red One being $250 million is striking, especially considering that this movie had a budget of only est. $150 million and that was 17 years ago...
Optimus Prime, Davy Jones and Neytiri.
The Holy Trinity of 2000s CGI characters.
Amazing video, thank you. Transformers 1 and 2012 are movies that I'm still impressed by the CGI every time I watch.
visual effect of this movie have to be COOL as they possible.
just few days ago I just talk with friends about what makes Kamen Rider (basically kids show with rubber suit + plastic armor and fireworks) from 20 years ago more likable than Hollywood today, because show like that doesn't care about logic and realism, just all hands to create the coolest scene as they possible, meanwhile Hollywood tough have that value in the past, they grew into the opposite direction by making everything more ugly and awkward as possible because that's how real people and physics will react in that situation in real world.
It also helps that where as Hollywood tries to be the next 'best X' 'most innovative Y' 'best screenplay' etc all at the same time, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, etc just try to be the best Kamen rider/Sentai/etc they can be and to make the most out of what tools they have.
The scene with Optimus and the bus is incredible. In photos it looks real. The whole film is nearly flawless as far as how it looks. The human special effects are the only bits that can look pants.
I understand people that prefer the OG designs. I get it. But I always prefered the Bay designs. I loved watching every single piece moving somewhere so that another piece could move elsewhere and becoming this extremely complex design and animation. I love the transformations and the way they move around in the set.
i was just rewatching transformers last week and i was thinking about how 2007 movie looks better than like every new movie today... its also actually fun to watch