Transforming ideas

It's been a while since we've seen this kind of Badlander*.

The original is a web movie - an animation made by some talented freelancers who wouldn't mind some work thrown their way.. The non-original is made by Nike... Have a look to see what you think about this.

The Nike film can be viewed here Nike air Transformer and on Nike's own website Nikelab - whilst the transforming Volkswagen can be seen on Michael Smiths portfolio website where he also shows how he made this transforming beetle.

The guy in the white T-shirt walking through the beetle version is actually Michael - but the guy in the white T-shirt walking through the Nike ad is not. We haven't been able to find out who is the animator/post house behind the Nike transformer..

We do know though, that the beetle has been passed around the web since this summer when it cropped up on well-hit weblogs such as Metafilter, and also passed around Wieden and Kennedy in a pile of "inspiration links".

It is just a damn shame they didn't hire Michael and Thuan to do their ad.

what do you all think of this Badlander?

* another Badlander sprung from the web is inspired by web movies...?