How do you make a huge blockbuster summer action flick for only $150 million? You cut costs in every area you can. You might recognize one or two of the shots from Transformers, because it’s likely that Michael Bay recycled them from his other films. Why spend a boat load (pun intended) of cash for a shot of an aircraft carrier if you already have one in the avid editing bay?
The shot above was captured from the high definition version of the Transformers trailer (as we don’t have access to a film print). The photo below is from Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor. Okay, so they aren’t completely identical. The contrast and saturation are changed, and oh yeah, there are fighter jets on the aircraft carrier. May-be those were computer created?
Update: Mark Bush has answered my question in the comments below. The shot from Pearl Harbor is actually the shot they had to touch up with computers, while the Transformers shot is likely the original.
The lower was CG due to trying to make a copy of USS HORNET for the Pearl Harbor movie along with adding the B-25 removing all radar and communications from the mast and changing the lighting to bland the details of the hull to make the shot less obvious that it was a modern carrier.
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:40 am
or maybe he just really really likes that angle and has decided to use it again…
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:02 pm
The ships in the background are in the same place.That’s definately recycled footage.
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:09 pm
It’s the clouds that give it away. By the way, I’d have done the same thing wherever I could.
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Great catch, Mr. Sciretta, great catch. From the clouds, the lighting, and the placement of the ships, I’d say you’re right.
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:34 pm
indeed, my bad. Quick thinking.
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:35 pm
highly unlikely that Micheal Bay shot a new navy image.at first when i saw the image i though,this is BULLSHIT,he did a new shot.but the image is identical to the tea minus the planes.i was in the NAVY 5 years and i tell you it’s time consuming and costly to shoot naval vessels.he definately recycled the image and just manipulated it.real clever of him.good catch to whoever caught this!
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:38 pm
That is really amazing, I would have never seen that! Those two pictures are
absolutely identical, and it actually didn’t matter if he changed the lighting, it
is completely obvious!!!!!
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Has anybody seen Transformers?
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Dylan, yep I have too. Saw it last Thursday. I gave it a solid 7/10. Story has more than a few glaring weaknesses, but bottom line, no one’s that interested in the story, they’re interested in seeing giant-robot-on-giant-robot action (and Transfomers has plenty of that).
July 3rd, 2007 at 2:34 pm
i saw it last night!it was AMAZING!it lived up to the hype,i saw no flaws in it.i’m typically a harsh critic,but this film quenched my every thirst for Transformer action.it had it’s comedic bits,love scenes,drama,and pleanty of action.the plot was well thickened in a roux of hollywood high end budget.i give the fucker a 9!
July 3rd, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Good catch. But in reality, a lot of footage and CG effects do get reused in other movies. Like everyone else though, as a true Transformers fan I have to say that the movie delivers…sure it’s VERY Michael Bay (he loves his slo-mo) but man when Optimus Prime says “Autobots roll out!” it almost brought a tear to my eye.
-http://www.backlottalk.com
July 3rd, 2007 at 3:10 pm
To Fyodor_Fish.Yeah I figured that.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:18 pm
compare the ripples in the water. case closed.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:27 pm
To the credit of Michael Bay, the “Scene” is Identical, but the aircraft carrier contained in most of the image is not. The background scenery, sky, water, and background ships are the same, but it looks like what they did was take the frame of the original Aircraft carrier shot in Pearl Harbor and just transpose an Aircraft Carrier from now onto it, there are jet fighters, the antennae are different, there are all sorts of doodads added onto the thing. In all seriousness, though, who cares? You posted like 1-2 weeks ago that Michael Bay had planned on doing a scene where he had an entire Aircraft Carrier transform, but it was scrapped due to cost. He probably grabbed this footage from Pearl Harbor last minute to save even more money since this water scene was used for maybe 20 seconds of the entire movie.
Nice catch regardless, most moviegoers will never think of it…..ever…
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Finally!! A use for Pearl Harbor!
I like it…
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Something this suttle. doesn’t bother me at all. As long as the only way I notice is for someone to point it out to me then go ahead and use it. This is one of the best movies I have ever seen!
-Tom
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:26 pm
But the really shitty thing is, so much else of Transformers, even the music, felt recycled.
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:26 pm
I’m not going to say I love the idea but on the other hand, why reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to?
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I thought that was an awesome catch, so much so I threw it up on Digg and it made the front page.
(sorry to cause a digg effect, lol). But yeah, good eye.
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:34 pm
NOW I CAN’T WATCH THE TRANSFORMERS
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:47 pm
its common for directors to use footage in the trailer that is not in the film. this is definatly recycled footage, its a question of wether its in the movie aswell
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Nice catch; well done!
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Or maybe , just maybe all of our fricken carriers are out to sea. Besides who do you you really care?
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Well it sounds reasonable, I mean cut wherever you can - look at cartoon or animated shows where they readily reuse clips and sequences to spare costs and time.
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:10 pm
The biggest giveaway is that it is a WW2-era straight deck carrier. The US switched to angled deck carriers in 50s. The didn’t directly recycle the finished shot though. They obviously went back to the original animation, made modifications to the carrier model, and then re-rendered the shot.
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:19 pm
look at the clouds. theyre exactly the same. the fighters were probably CG
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:59 pm
That sure is nuts for someone to spot that and recognize where it’s from. Good catch but I see nothing wrong with doing this, if it saves a few hundred grand or possibly millions from the development costs then it should benefit the producers and hopefully lead to another Transformers. The movie rocked for those that are curious.
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:38 pm
You are incorrect the shot for Pearl Harbor is the CG work the top shot is a
current picture. The lower was CG due to trying to make a copy of USS HORNET
for the Pearl Harbor movie along with adding the B-25 removing all radar and
communications from the mast and changing the lighting to bland the details of
the hull to make the shot less obvious that it was a modern carrier. The ships
in the back round are oilers and a TYCO class Cruser. And notice the
MK-15 Phalanx mount on both pictures and the
July 4th, 2007 at 1:08 am
Wow! good eye, Peter. I never would have spotted that in a million years! lol.
Steve
July 4th, 2007 at 1:51 am
Wow I just saw the movie and never noticed this.
July 4th, 2007 at 2:22 am
The movie was great! But, I agree something from the music to those dang ole robots
seemed recycled! I just can’t put my finger on it! Reminds me of a cartoon i watched as a
child in the 80s. hrmm
tj
July 4th, 2007 at 2:42 am
Just to note, this screen cap is in the movie. But they do a pan around shot giving more than just this exact screen shot, was the whole scene recycled from Pearl Harbor? I’ve never seen it so I can’t reference.
Recycled sound effects in the movie? C’mon.
I think all that matters is the fact they got Peter Cullen to do the voice acting again. That in itself made me wet myself.
Out.
July 4th, 2007 at 5:11 am
How much time do you really think the Navy takes out to pose for cameras?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the original footage wasn’t shot by a member of the Navy in the first place and provided for directors to use.
One does not simply drive a boat out to the closest carrier group and roll some film on it.
July 4th, 2007 at 5:44 am
I think that someone needs to point out that ILM would have been the one to recycle this. I’m sure Bay wasn’t at his Inferno suite, rendering a scene and decided to start with an old shot.
I’ve heard of people using the same elements over again, but maybe they should have at least flipped the image, or changed the size of it in the frame?
July 4th, 2007 at 6:36 am
warrenpeace416, while ILM worked on the majority of the FX shots in the film they didn’t work on all of the shots in the trailer. in fact aside from the shots with the robots the trailer was created by Michael Bay and his editorial team. also, it may interest you to know that footage for in the trailer is often shot specifically for that purpose and doesn’t always end up in the film. the marketing blitz starts so early these days the film usuall hasn’t even finished beeing shot before you start seeing commericals and adverts for it= often made to give the flavor of the piece and not the exact imagery that wil be seen in the finished film…
July 4th, 2007 at 7:11 am
This footage was in the movie, not just the trailer. It was originally shot for “Pearl Harbor” and was actual ships. If you look just under the overhang of the flight deck you will clearly see the Canadian Warship HMCS Regina. The “fleet” was specifically arranged for this shot and the US and Canadian Navies took full advanage for a whole range of publicity photos. The CG was done of the original to clean up the carriers “island” so it would give the appearance of a WWII carrier. As the US navy typically arranges its a/c on deck like we see in the second shot only when its doing a photo shoot they were probably real and also removed for the PH movie. I originally noticed the ship in the DVD of “Pearl Harbour” and was immediately struck with Deja Vu when I sat in my seat watching Transformers and saw the Regina again.
July 4th, 2007 at 9:36 am
HOAX! The glints on the water are identical. Clearly someone took a frame from whichever movie, copied it, and changed the details on the second carrier slightly, ignoring the detail in the water. Unless we’re supposed to believe that the SAME EXACT FRAME OF THE ORIGINAL FOOTAGE was captured from two different sources by sheer coincidence. Maybe it was captured that way on purpose? Seems unlikely. Go back to using Photoshop for making your Myspace pics seem more “dark” and “interesting.” Or maybe you could glue wings on kangaroo and say you found such an animal in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
Get a life. And I can’t believe you made me defend Michael Bay.
July 4th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Awesome–you’d have to be a total newb to think these were two completely different shots. Nice catch though!
July 4th, 2007 at 10:49 am
more importantly, who the fuck cares? stop trying so hard to kill the guys work.
July 4th, 2007 at 11:50 am
i seen transformers the other day…. i was very disappointed. some seens were kick-ass, while others were 4th grade at best. the acting was a solid 2 out of 10… the plot a 5 out of 10… the cheesy one-liners i give a 1 out of 10…(because they had one about every 42 seconds )
the action gets a nice 7 out of 10…. and the movie as a whole, gets 5 out of 10.
if you have free tickets or a date who will pay for you, go for it…. otherwise wait for theblu-ray to come out.
July 4th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
This weirdly makes me respect him more.
I still don’t really respect him, though.
July 4th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
From one of the top views of the carrier steaming, you can identify it as CVN-72…the USS Abraham Lincoln. Geographically, if we were to deploy a carrier on short notice towards North Korea (as the story went at that point) The Lincoln (stationed in Bremerton, WA)
July 5th, 2007 at 6:52 am
Does anyone find it strange that these robots went through all the trouble of locating the kid who posted the glasses for sale on e-bay? I was wondering why didn’t the robots just put in a bid?!??!
July 5th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Look at the WATER and the clouds CGI could have fixed them but there exactly
the same
July 7th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Wow, that is just sad, you really have nothing better to do with your time than pick out something so pointless and trivial. Come on I guess with all the little oops moments in the movie you can only point out that, pretty sad
July 11th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Well, I don’t see what’s the big deal bout that. It’s only a few secs of that same scene. So what if they want to cut their cost low? That is a smart idea anyway. No big deal.. ;)
July 24th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
no question that is recycled
July 24th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Why does it matter if the guy recycled photage? If you guys just want to bash
him, y’all need to get a life.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I don’t have any problem with it … It was just a nice catch by peter.
October 27th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
I really found it interesting that it reappeared because I was aboard the Abraham Lincoln when the footage was shot during the filiming of ‘Pearl Harbor’ and I actually had a hand in arranging the ships into the formation for these shots. It was obviously the same footage.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Actually, the 2 of the 3 ships to the right of the carrier are confirmed as Canadian. This was taken during RIMPAC a number or years ago. Visible, are the HMCS Regina (FFH-334) and the HMCS Protecteur (AOR-509). The stern of the ship to the far right I believe is HMCS Algonquin (DDGH-281) but I can’t confirm that.