Scott Hettrick on Michael Bay's Blu-ray support

[kaliraver]

It would appear that the glass of Kool-Aid that Paramount and DreamWorks execs hurriedly coaxed Michael Bay to drink a couple months ago to retract his angry words about "Transformers" not being released on Blu-ray Disc has lost its taste for the filmmaker. (see Aug. 21 Hettrick blog: "Pissed Michael Bay")

USAToday.com quotes the quote-meister as reverting back to his original contention that Blu-ray Disc is superior, this within a few days of the release of "Transformers" only on HD DVD (and DVD).

His quote about the format war in general and his preference for Blu-ray specifically:

"It's short-sighted and it has delayed consumers' moving to HD (home video)," he says. "As a director, my critical eye is that Blu-ray is where my money is. Consumers are smart, and they are going to wait it out."

Readers here at HollywoodinHiDef.com have weighed in with their disappointment that the HD DVD version of "Transformers" does not have Dolby TrueHD or uncompressed PCM audio due to the limitations of the 30 GB HD DVD format. Those superior audio choices have become practically standard on Blu-ray with its far greater capacity of 50 GB.

Bay was also unhappy about the "Transformers" DVD being so rushed that he could not be as involved with it as he would have liked, saying it's not as good as it could have been.

Granted, Bay is a control freak, as has proven to be perfectly warranted and as even he himself seems almost proud to admit in all his production diary featurettes on his movies.

But it strikes me as very puzzling and not just a little strategically dangerous and consumer-unfriendly for studios like Paramount and DreamWorks to appear to be going out of their way to displease their biggest filmmakers in Bay and Steven Spielberg (and, most likely, George Lucas with his Indiana Jones movies and Young Indy TV series) by refusing to release any of the movies from these moviemaking giants on what at least two of them have made publicly clear is their preferred high-def format, Blu-ray Disc.

http://www.hollywoodinhidef.com/blog_detail.php?id=135

I find this article funny how Paramount/Dreamworks can piss off not only Blu-Ray supporters and their invaluable Director's in Steven Spielberg & Michael Bay. With the pressure from those two guys & the numbers Blu-Ray is winning by I hope Paramount & DW wake up and join the blu team and end this retarded war along with Warner in 08.