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Inverse had an interesting interview with Adam Wingard, director of Godzilla Vs Kong. In it, the focus is on Mecha Godzilla, as it is the only new Monsterverse design that debuted in the film. A big part of the article is Wingard recalling watching Transformers Dark of the Moon, which serves as an inspiration to him for what not to do. It is in this excerpt below:

Wingard says that when it came to Mechagodzilla, he was more focused on avoiding the mistakes of previous films than on copying some other classic sci-fi robot. The director is talking about one terrible movie in particular: Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

“I remember watching the third Transformers movie in the theater,” Wingard recalls. “It was one of those things where I was with a date, and we got there late, and the only seats that were available were literally in the front row. And so I'm sitting there watching Transformers 3 in the front row, and I couldn't tell what the hell was going on.”

“The Transformers, they just looked like metal. They looked like a plane crash. So I thought, that's the thing I wanted to avoid. They were too complex. There are too many moving parts, and I couldn't latch on to anything. Nothing felt iconic with that Transformers design.”

“The Transformers animated movie from the '80s with Orson Welles was one of the best movie experiences for me as a kid growing up,” Wingard says. “Period.”

Yawn. Also gives me another reason to like GvK less and less.

This is hilariously on point with the first thing I said walking out from seeing Godzilla vs Kong: “ I would DIE to have this man direct a transformers movie, simply because he seems to care so much about the characters he’s making a movie about. Not the stupid human side plots, not the made up parts that the studio wants you to shove in, but Godzilla and Kong. That movie did those characters JUSTICE, and I would pay any amount of money to see this man put that same fan service and care into a transformers movie. So funny to see his thoughts on such a specific topic just days later.

jtanimator wrote:This is hilariously on point with the first thing I said walking out from seeing Godzilla vs Kong: “ I would DIE to have this man direct a transformers movie, simply because he seems to care so much about the characters he’s making a movie about. Not the stupid human side plots, not the made up parts that the studio wants you to shove in, but Godzilla and Kong. That movie did those characters JUSTICE, and I would pay any amount of money to see this man put that same fan service and care into a transformers movie. So funny to see his thoughts on such a specific topic just days later.

Kong is more onscreen in that film than Optimus is in any of the Transformers films. He actually made the titans the most important characters rather than just have them be in the background while we focus on the human characters who are looking at them.

Thanks for the spoiler ...

Well... I don't know how much this guy knows about and understands what TF is... DOTM was a good movie but I think there's something else We can read in his words. He's shifting towards G1 design because the next movie will be more on the BBee style. It's not a mistake in itself: I like G1 design and I liked BBee very much. The mistake is saying that DOTM is a bad movie or that the Bay TFs design was ugly and not iconic: He should remember that in 2007 They had to REINVENT TFs because the were making a film not only for fans so They tried to reshape all the carachters. It was an option and They've done a good job in my opinion, even if at that time many fans were upset for the new design.

What I want to say is that G1 style (which I like more) and 2007 design are both good and are different ways of looking at TF franchise and different ideas about the movies. DOTM isn't a bad movie, moreover if You say that it was bad due to robots shape. The really bad movies in TF were ROTF and AoE, While TLK was nice but simply not a TF movie: it was a "something else movie" starring Transformers.

Anyway, I hope next movie will be more like BBee

Burn wrote:Thanks for the spoiler ...

Hardly a spoiler when it is in the trailers. They weren't hiding it for this movie.

Trikeboy wrote:

Burn wrote:Thanks for the spoiler ...

Hardly a spoiler when it is in the trailers. They weren't hiding it for this movie.

You presume I watched the trailer.

Thats on you then. It wasn't a spoiler for everyone else who did watch the trailer.

I'm trying not to read too much into the director's comments. My take is that he didn't exactly say DOTM was bad as a movie, just the robots in it look like a mess. Of course the Bayverse movies that came after
DOTM were worse. But who knows? The director might've given up watching the franchise after DOTM.

While I don't agree with him about these Bayverse designs being "not iconic" -- like them or not, they are iconic in their own way -- I do agree the overly complex designs and the similar color palettes make the fast moving fight scenes hard to watch and thus have less emotional impact.

Interesting thing is, if you take your live-action movie toy figures and recreate the fight screens in the movie, you can differentiate the bots far better than the movie itself.

Godzilla Vs Kong Director wrote:“I remember watching the third Transformers movie in the theater,” Wingard recalls. “It was one of those things where I was with a date, and we got there late, and the only seats that were available were literally in the front row. And so I'm sitting there watching Transformers 3 in the front row, and I couldn't tell what the hell was going on.”

I would hardly recommend watching a movie in the front row.

“The Transformers, they just looked like metal. They looked like a plane crash. So I thought, that's the thing I wanted to avoid. They were too complex. There are too many moving parts, and I couldn't latch on to anything. Nothing felt iconic with that Transformers design.”

That's subjective.

It’s really just a matter of preference, I never had an issue following the fights in the movies and I love the complex designs, they’re just so much more interesting. I’d take movie Ironhide’s design over that Mechagodzilla design any day.

Spoilers for GvK:
Just an interesting side note; Mechagodzilla’s creation in GvK is very, VERY similar to Galvatron’s in AOE.

I’m glad he said something instead of praising Bay. I thought the transformers were background characters in all movies. Except Bumblebee, it was an improvement. I agree with his opinion of the transformers design it was too busy, in Bumblebee his design looked closer to the cartoon. I was always bothered by the fact that the transformers in the Bay films seemed so fragile. If they get punched parts fly off them, the human military with guns can take them out. If you punch another human, parts don’t fly off (maybe teeth) , I feel it should be the same for the Transformers, it would take a lot to hurt them.

william-james88 wrote:Inverse had an interesting interview with Adam Wingard, director of Godzilla Vs Kong. In it, the focus is on Mecha Godzilla, as it is the only new Monsterverse design that debuted in the film.

No, there were a few new designs. Granted only one of them could be considered a "kaiju" (Warbat), but still.



Also MechaGodzilla looks about as busy as any Transformer design, specially compared to previous MG's. The arms are really long too. It's fine, but my personal favorite is still Kiryu from the Millenium series.

That kind of nails how I've felt about the bayverse movies in general. 'Too complicated. Nothing iconic. Can't focus on anything.'

It's as if every transformer in the Bayverse was taken slightly out of focus on purpose, so you COULDN'T get a good look at them. Like Bay and the crew were somehow ashamed of them and didn't want anyone to be able to see them properly.

And in some measure, they tried too HARD, making them out of too many parts, just so they could prove how good they were at making all of those parts slide around. In the end, it really did make them all look like 'a plane crash'. Or as I once suggested, 'piles of used Brillo'.

The newer "Bumblebee" movies are only slightly less objectionable. Better, but still based in Bayverse, and thus, still fettered by the Bayverse aesthetic.

I said this before when the first movie came out way back in 2007 and I was lynched for it. I’ve continued to say it and so have other fans for years. Now a professional director comes along and says these things. That’s nice feeling.

TulioDude wrote:

Godzilla Vs Kong Director wrote:“I remember watching the third Transformers movie in the theater,” Wingard recalls. “It was one of those things where I was with a date, and we got there late, and the only seats that were available were literally in the front row. And so I'm sitting there watching Transformers 3 in the front row, and I couldn't tell what the hell was going on.”

I would hardly recommend watching a movie in the front row.

“The Transformers, they just looked like metal. They looked like a plane crash. So I thought, that's the thing I wanted to avoid. They were too complex. There are too many moving parts, and I couldn't latch on to anything. Nothing felt iconic with that Transformers design.”

That's subjective.

Yes, it is, and he already said so. This is HIS opinion. Why is everyone here trying to tell him that his opinion is subjective and wrong? He literally says “nothing FELT iconic”. That’s his emotions. Stop telling him he’s wrong when he just directed a giant monster movie that is *in my opinion* better than most of the action from any bay movie. And most reviewers that have been posted from thousands of people would agree.

jtanimator wrote:

TulioDude wrote:

Godzilla Vs Kong Director wrote:“I remember watching the third Transformers movie in the theater,” Wingard recalls. “It was one of those things where I was with a date, and we got there late, and the only seats that were available were literally in the front row. And so I'm sitting there watching Transformers 3 in the front row, and I couldn't tell what the hell was going on.”

I would hardly recommend watching a movie in the front row.

“The Transformers, they just looked like metal. They looked like a plane crash. So I thought, that's the thing I wanted to avoid. They were too complex. There are too many moving parts, and I couldn't latch on to anything. Nothing felt iconic with that Transformers design.”

That's subjective.

Yes, it is, and he already said so. This is HIS opinion. Why is everyone here trying to tell him that his opinion is subjective and wrong? He literally says “nothing FELT iconic”. That’s his emotions. Stop telling him he’s wrong when he just directed a giant monster movie that is *in my opinion* better than most of the action from any bay movie. And most reviewers that have been posted from thousands of people would agree.

I never said he was wrong or what he should like and looking at other posts,nobody said it either.
He has right to feel how he wants to feel.He said his opinion and I just disagree.

Trikeboy wrote:Thats on you then. It wasn't a spoiler for everyone else who did watch the trailer.

Which trailer are you refering to?Most just focus on Godzilla and Kong.
From what I heard,MechaGodzilla appearances in trailers, can only be seen by pausing the trailer and zooming in

This news could use a spoiler warning in the beginning

I agree with this director 100%. It was a mess overall with the bots. Not just with the design but the character development of the bots. There was zero emotional attachment to them. Kong can't even speak, yet you are sympathetic of him.

I agree with the director, the bots are mostly uniconic for me as well.
And it is very unfocused and confusing when they fight. I didn't like the design back in 2007 and still don't. I was happy with G1 truck in TF4, but transforming once.

I do like the camera angles in the first movie and the hectic fights I do like. But I know what they are and I'm in a minority for liking that.

I have no idea how I'm going to watch this Goku vs Batman movie, the unspecified bug from unknown origin is still effing up theaters in my country. Thanks Disney.

I personally do like a lot of the Bayverse designs and never had any problems following the action, but that is of course subjective.

I do disagree about the movie designs not being at all iconic, though. They had a pretty big influence on the designs of many characters in the following years, most notably Bumblebee.

I also recently had a friend who's not a Transformers fan say that something notably complex and busy-looking (I forget exactly what it was) "looks like a Transformer". I'm not sure he meant it as a compliment, but I think it shows that the Bayverse designs have become synonymous with Transformers to a lot of people, even if not necessarily within the fandom.

Like or loathe the direction of the Bayformers aesthetic. One thing would have enhanced the designs and arguably made them a lot more palatable to some critics: Colour. A bold colour scheme for each bot. An identifier for what you are looking at, during the blurrier moments. This was however just reserved for a couple of the Autobots. Instead of naturally drawing your eye into their detail.

Anyway, he ended up making the other Bayformers mistake: Too many humans! There are literally 4-6 people in this that could have been cut, without altering the film in any way.
Just like KOTM, the fights were great. The rest was frustrating.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Like or loathe the direction of the Bayformers aesthetic. One thing would have enhanced the designs and arguably made them a lot more palatable to some critics: Colour. A bold colour scheme for each bot. An identifier for what you are looking at, during the blurrier moments. This was however just reserved for a couple of the Autobots.

Most critics praised Bay for fixing that issue in Age of Extinction since all autobots were colour coded in the film. Sadly that was one of the few positives they said about the film.