Bay Rants About High Definition Format Wars Again

Michael Bay is rapidly becoming known as the format war’s crybaby. Last time the spectacle-director voiced off on the subject of Blu-ray vs. HD DVD, he was singing the praises of Blu-ray and publicly denouncing his participation in a Transformers sequel if the movie wasn’t released on the high definition format (this was in response to Paramount’s announcement that they were moving exclusively to HD DVD).

Of course, we all know how that entry with Bay ended. Twenty-four hours later and he was apologizing for his thoughtless words, stating he had now seen HD DVD and was fine with the format. Basically, he was a public example of why you shouldn’t drink and blog.

Now Bay is voicing his opinion on the format wars again and, frankly, he’s sounding like a conspiracy theorist lunatic. On the forums for Shoot for the Edit.com, Bay announced that he thinks the Blu-ray / HD DVD battle has been manufactured by Microsoft as a way to set both formats up to fail. Bay writes: That is why Microsoft is handing out $100 million dollar checks to studios just embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, and superior Blu Ray. They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads. Time will tell and you will see the truth."

That’s right. According to Bay, the format wars have been created as a delay by Microsoft, who doesn’t want either side to win, but wants time to perfect digital downloads. If the filmmaker is right, both Blu-ray and HD DVD will fail, and anyone who invests in either side will come out a loser.

Is it just me, or is this the technological equivilant of Mel Gibson’s anti-semitic diatribe? There is no format wars, it’s just fake. Nobody is actually supporting HD DVD, they’re just being paid to do so. Right. And Microsoft is harboring Osama Bin Laden too.

Bay needs to stick to making movies with big explosions (and little plots) and stay away from a discussion of how to show those movies on home entertainment systems. Right now he’s just coming across as a lunatic again, and I’m just waiting for the forthcoming excuse that he was just posting under the influence again. Sorry Michael, we didn’t by it last time, it didn’t work for Mel, and it’s not going to work for you either.