Michael Bay Denies Reports That 'Transformers 3' Has 3D Problems

Michael Bay was once a vocal opponent of 3D; the format certainly seemed at odds with his frenetic shooting and editing style. But Transformers: Dark of the Moon was shot natively in 3D, and over the Thanksgiving holiday a report surfaced that there were 'snags' in the 3D process for the third film in the giant robot series.

The report came from IESB, which has been undergoing a few issues of its own lately, and because the sources were listed as anonymous insiders, we didn't worry about it too much. Now Michael Bay has spoken up, denying that there is any issue at all with the film's 3D process. He also seems to promise a teaser trailer within the next couple weeks, attached to Tron Legacy and The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

IESB's claim was that the 3D in Dark of the Moon "looks like shit" and that the studio was scrambling to book post-production houses to salvage it.

Mr. Bay responded to the allegation via his own website:

Wow, I read these morons on the internet who think they are in the know. "We have have problems with our 3D????" Really? Come into my edit room and I will show you beautiful 3D. There has never been a live action show that has pushed the boundaries of 3D like Transformers 3. We shot the entire movie with 3D cameras. I actually loved shooting in 3D. I will give full details of my process and why I liked 3D in the next week right before the Transformers announcement piece comes out on Tron and Narnia... And don't watch this movie in 2D, we made it for 3D.

That statement comes as no surprise, but it's better to place your faith in his defense than in any anonymous report at this point. Michael Bay does more than his share of grandstanding, but I'm curious to see how the footage looks, especially given his previous statement about 3D, from spring 2009. Set the not-so-wayback machine:

I think 3-D is going to be a fad. I personally don't like 3-D. The glasses impair your peripheral vision. If the studios want to push any technology, it should be IMAX. That's much more immersive.

With these two comments bookending the first Michael Bay 3D production, I'm quite interested to see what he'll release to "give full details of [his] process" before the teaser trailer comes out. That impairment of peripheral vision, along with the darkened image that comes with many 3D projections, are two big issues. If Bay has shot 3D to counteract at least the darkened image (as James Cameron largely managed to do) then Dark of the Moon might have a shot at being a successful 3D presentation, even with the trademark Bay style in place.