Man’s desire to build tall things began with the construction of the Tower of Babel, an undertaking retrospectively considered to be a failure. Countries today continue to satiate this desire by participating in the seemingly pointless and unofficiated competition of creating the tallest man-made buildings. However, I think we can all agree that this is getting a little tired. I say we let the Burj Khalifa in Dubai reign champion and move on to better things – like building real life giant robot models.
China for one, is moving in the right direction. An 11-metre-high, 21-ton statue of the Autobot’s pillar of strength Optimus Prime has recently been unveiled in a square in Shenyang City. While the Japanese seem to have an invested interest in making giant Gundam statues, the Chinese have inexplicably decided to dedicate themselves to building giant Transformers. I suppose their affection for these large self-aware machines might have something to do with the fact that Transformers are un-manned and controlled by nobody. It’s telling that the first Transformers movie remains one of the most successful foreign films at the Chinese box-office.
The Optimus Prime statue is located just outside the “Guangzho Street” metro station and was assembled using actual old car parts from twenty different cars, something that would make Michel Gondry proud and proves that China cares about recycling. This statue stands only one metre taller than the previous one assembled near the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing. The pictures look incredible and the fact that it’s made out of actual car parts only adds to its realism. It would have been nice to see some weapons somewhere on the statue and maybe a better positioning since the androit, hands-by-side pose makes him look a little stiff. The pictures of people standing next to the statue really puts it into perspective and helps to give us a better idea of its scale and size.
All my respect goes to China if they can make this thing transform into an “Ark” that can save the world in case of global flooding.
Via: Oddity Central
