‘Transformers 2’ Running Time Longer on IMAX

‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ is just over two weeks away, and director Michael Bay is putting on the finishing touches for the film’s release.   Evidently, the release seen in IMAX (and IMAX Experience) theaters across the country will be different than the one seen in regular theaters.

Bay put this message out on his official message board:

Hey everyone,

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.

Haters beware.

Michael

So, I guess that answers my question as to which version of the film I will have to see.   Of course, this is going to raise a lot of ire from people who don’t have an IMAX theater convenient.   I can understand shooting certain scenes with IMAX cameras so that those scenes will absolutely blow you away in IMAX theaters.   What I don’t agree with is the idea of Bay including full scenes in the IMAX version.   This is akin to purposefully leaving scenes out of a film’s theatrical release for the sole purpose of releasing them on a DVD release.

This bit of information is sure to make ticket sales for IMAX versions of the film blow through the roof.   We’ll find out if ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ can break ‘The Dark Knight’s record of $6.2 million on 94 IMAX screens.

‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ comes out on Wednesday, June 24th.

Source: MB/S4TE Message Board