What do you do when you want to copy another country’s efforts to recreate a giant robot that has been part of its identity for years as life-size statue-cum-tourist trap, but find you have none of your own?
In China’s case, simply copy some other country’s robotic icon, in this case resulting in an impressive life-size rendition of Optimus Prime.
Located northwest of Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium, Optimus stands at 12m tall and weighs some 6 tons.
Seeing that useless junk is so abundant in China, sculptors apparently considered it as well to use them to make a giant Optimus Prime. Thus the replica was created, using 5 truckloads of used car parts.
With Japan and Korea the undisputed giant robot superpowers of Asia in both fiction and statuary, it seems China will have to devise an original indigenous creation if it is to have any chance of challenging the likes of Gundam.