Editing. It changes everything, from tone to intent. Mess with the pacing, and you change an entire film. Swap the musical cues of a brilliant composer for a tech-metal track from a Top 40 super group, and you have a whole new scene. And as this video shows, manipulate a classic Pixar film to make it look like it’s part of Michael Bay’s canon. Or cannon. With Bay, either applies.
YouTube user MrStratman7 took a pass at Pete Docter’s Up, changing the score and moving the audio so that it felt more like a traditional Michael Bay movie. He worked with the dialogue at his disposal, and added a few explosions. OK, a ton of explosions. Because Bay = Explosions. Everybody knows that. I also believe he ramped up the lighting. I can’t recall this many lens flares in Up. Maybe it’s just been a while since I watched Carl lift his house with balloons and pilot to Paradise Falls.
He even picks the release date of May 29. Not bad, kid. You sort of know your Michael Bay. The Linkin Park song selection helped.
But you forgot two CRUCIAL elements of every Bay movie, and they would have been easy to build into your Up homage. First, there needed to be at least one slow-motion walk toward the camera. Need I remind you about this Bay-tastic shot from Armageddon?
Also, every Michael Bay movie finds a way to pan-and-scan around the action heroes, usually as they are getting up after an action scene goes against he way they wanted it to go. It was first used in the original Bad Boys, and Bay loved the movement so much, he crammed it into virtually every movie he has directed since. In this terrific montage, the show occurs at the 1:52 mark.
So the Up clip demonstrates what we all pretty much knew. There are a lot of pretenders in this universe, and they think they can ape Michael Bay’s style. But when you boil it down to the facts, there is only one Michael Bay on this planet. Aren’t we lucky?
