Bay Sees The HD Light

The following exchange from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home seems appropriate to kick off this post...

Dr. Gillian Taylor: Are you sure you won't change your mind?

Spock: Is there something wrong with the one I have?

Daniel Frankel of Variety:

The decision by Paramount and DreamWorks Animation to exclusively back HD DVD may have garnered the studios financial incentives valued at a reported $150 million, but it seems to have irked at least one high-profile filmmaker in the process.

"No 'Transformers 2' for me!" wrote helmer Michael Bay (pictured) in a post on his personal Web forum (headline: "Paramount pisses me off!") that was widely circulated Tuesday. "I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks!"

By the end of the day, however, Bay had softened his stance after speaking to Par brass and taken down his original post, replacing it with the following:

"Last night at dinner I was having dinner with three Blu-Ray owners, they were pissed about no the "Transformers" Blu-ray and I drank the Kool-Aid hook, line and sinker. So at 1:30 in the morning I posted -- nothing good ever comes out of early a.m. posts mind you -- I overreacted. I heard where Paramount is coming from and the future of HD and players that will be close to the $200 mark which is the magic number. I like what I heard.

"As a director, I'm all about people seeing films in the best quality possible, and I saw and heard first-hand people upset about a corporate decision.

"So today I saw '300' on HD, it rocks!

"So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!"

Bay was unavailable for comment...

Bay has a reputation as a "react then retract" kind of guy..

Stax of IGN:

The webmaster for Bay's official site has posted the following on the site's message board:

"I spoke to Michael a few minutes ago. He said he just wants people to know that we should be able to view his movies in the format of our choice. Period. Nothing more, nothing less."

The webmaster later added, "Keep in mind he quit Pearl Harbor about 4x during pre-production"

Despite Bay's change of heart after talking with his (once and future) bosses--I still say his original assessment was correct. The decision sucks for the consumer. There's no clear victor in the current format war--and until the marketplace decides on a winner-titles available in both HD and Blu-Ray is the best way to go.