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How To Go Bigger With Transformers 3: Unicron

Rob Keyes — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:03:02 +0000

You Transformers fans know what I’m talking about when you see the name “Unicron.”

That’s right. If you thought Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen was a massive convoluted mess of nonsense and wasted… well, everything, coated in a big pile of explosions and sometimes-awkward visuals, then you’ve seen nothing yet. How can you introduce and misuse even bigger characters for Transformers 3 after what happened with Devastator and many others in Revenge of the Fallen?

Well, you introduce the Death Star Transformer!

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, Unicron was the antagonist character introduced in the 1986 animated Transformers: The Movie. He’s so big that he transforms into a mechanical planet, or as Obi-Wan Kenobi would describe, “that’s no moon.”

I’ll try to be as brief as possible in describing Unicron’s role in that movie and how it could tie into Michael Bay’s film series. In the 1986 cartoon movie, Unicron made a deal with the dying and betrayed Megatron (betrayed by Starscream) and offered to give him a new body (becoming Galvatron) in exchange for his efforts in destroying the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. Sound familiar? That Matrix was in Revenge of the Fallen and was the device that The Fallen sought out and sent Megatron after to destroy humanity with that big-ass machine.

In Transformers lore, The Fallen worked for Unicron so perhaps that’s the pattern of the movies: We think Megatron is the leader, we then find out The Fallen is his leader. We think The Fallen is the leader, we then find out Unicron is the leader?

The reason I bring this up is that videos have been popping up online for bonus features that were included on the DVD and Blu-ray releases of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on October 20th, one of which (Thanks to Cinema Blend for the find) was a hidden Easter Egg featuring Michael Bay joking around about Transformers 3 with pictures of Unicron in the background.

Note the cliches and Bay making fun of himself: doesn’t have to be all “action action action,” could be more emotional, darker?

The video is meant as a joke and a tease for the hardcore fans. It is also already dated as Bay refers to making a slower and smaller movie first then come back to the Transformers franchise? That’s what was originally the plan with Bay seemingly set to work on his personal passion project “Pain & Gain” but then he met with Steven Spielberg to discuss the project in September and shortly thereafter, it was announced that Transformers 3 would be over-rushed into production like its predecessor and that it would be out in 2011.

This Unicron thing could probably happen. Hasbro needs more toys and what better way to do it (in addition to having 100 no-named random background characters) is to kill off the majority of the Cybertronian cast and bring them back with new bodies! Don’t expect them to talk or even be introduced though. They just need to be shown once or twice.

What do you want from Transformers 3? Do you think Michael Bay will go bigger and bring out Unicron the next time around?

Transformers 3 is scheduled to open July 1, 2011 and I hope it gets delayed a few years.

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Transformers 3 Will Not Be Written By Orci & Kurtzman [Updated]

Rob Keyes — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:08:55 +0000

[UPDATE: It's Confirmed: Orci and Kurtzman are NOT writing Transformers 3]

On Tuesday, word spread online that the writers for Transformers and its sequel Revenge of the Fallen, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, would not be writing the third installment in the franchise.

The information originated from the Don Murphy forums were Orci participates regularly and it was here where the writer revealed that he and his partner are done with Transformers.

“Time for fresh blood!” writes Orci. “The main reason we would move on is because we risk getting stale and comfortable. If you only sing one song for too long, you miss the opportunity to sing news songs. We’ll see.”

While I enjoyed Transformers upon second viewing (the first time all I came out with was thoughts of the negative parts), my personal belief is that the main weakness of Transformers was its screenplay and that so many of its problems would have been rectified by different writing decisions. For that reason, I am pleased that the story, characters and dialogue will be written by others the third time around.

Whether that means just Ehren Kruger will write it himself, or others will come aboard to take Orci’s and Kurtzman’s spots. It’ll give them a chance to focus on other (read: better) projects where they may have a tad bit more control of the final product.

I’m hoping for and expecting a better movie experience with Revenge of the Fallen but I am happy there will be new writers behind Transformers 3. Orci and Kurtzman have a real test this year with both Star Trek and Revenge of the Fallen having been written/co-written by them and debuting as Summer tentpole films – so we’ll get a real good look at their writing ability.

What do you think of this news?

Update: Collider managed to get these quotes out of Kurtzman and Orci on the subject of Transformers 3:

Why have you decided not to be involved with Transformers 3?

Bob: We’ve been working on Transformers longer than I was in college. I feel like we have our degree in Transformers now.

Alex: The franchise is so wonderful that it deserves to be fresh, all the time. We just felt like we’d given it a lot and didn’t have an insight for where to go with it next, and said, “You should do it right.”

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opens June 24, 2009 and Transformers 3 is scheduled for July 1, 2011.

Source: /Film

Update Source: Collider

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Transformers 3 Coming in 2011

Kofi Outlaw — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:38:36 +0000

Wow, Michael Bay is a serious glutton for punishment. Barely a breath-catching minute after the slavish effort that “Boom-Boom” Bay and the f/x wizards over at Industrial Light and Magic put in to get Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen in theaters this past summer, they’re proposing to run that marathon all over again in order to get Transformers 3 in theaters for Summer 2011.

Bay made the official announcement today – and he even threw in a funny little stab at Megan Fox in response to all the you-know-what she’s been talking about him recently. Oh, and Transformers 2 haters listen up: apparently they have a “great story” this time around (do you believe it?).

Here’s the the official message Bay posted on his official forum:

Well its official: We have a great Transformers 3 story. The release date is now July 1st 2011. Not 2012.

Today is Day One. This morning started with an ILM meeting for five hours in San Francisco. Currently I’m flying with writer Ehren Kruger to Rhode Island to talk to Hasbro about new characters.

P.S. Megan Fox, welcome back. I promise no alien robots will harm you in any way during the production of this motion picture. Please consult your Physician when working under my direction because some side effects can occur, such as mild dizziness, intense nausea, suicidal tendencies, depression, minor chest hair growth, random internal hemorrhaging and inability to sleep. As some directors may be hazardous to your health, please consult your Doctor to determine if this is right for you.

Pain and Gain is right after shooting of Trans 3.

Michael

Ehren Kruger helped out with the “script” for Transformers 2, he also wrote The Skeleton Key, The Brothers Grimm and Reindeer Games. An actual good movie he wrote (ZING!): Arlington Road.

To be honest, after seeing Revenge of the Fallen, I would be happy with Transformers 3 having A story, let alone alone a “great” one. Though, if Bay is thinking of bringing back The Twins, I don’t know how “great” the next film can possibly be.

The official release date of Transformers 3 (as stated) is July 1, 2011. Summer 2011 is quickly shaping up to be pretty epic.

Source: Michael Bay Forum via Superhero Hype

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Sweet Transformers Concept Art

Rob Keyes — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:42:20 +0000

Today we’ve got a collection of concept art by artist Ben Procter (thanks to the very cool site ConceptArtWorld.com) that feature a ton of characters as well as some of key objects from Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

As you’ll see, Procter’s art is amazing and he’s worked on a ton of major feature films before including the Matrix sequels, Superman Returns, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and many others.

Unfortunately, most characters in the film weren’t given any characterization (most of them weren’t given a name or any dialogue in the movie) and so the concept art for Revenge of the Fallen represents all the characterization we get of many of the Cybertronians featured in the film.

Some of the robot designs in the movie were really cool but some are too extreme. The Alice character in particular had zero purpose in the film other than to take away time from the characters we care more about and make the film make less sense.

Here are the twins in Icecream truck mode. I didn’t dig these characters at all and many didn’t find them funny or cool – they didn’t fit within the movies and took away from what viewers wanted to see. So, of course they were made the stars of the film over the other characters.

Note the awesome symmetrical designs of the faces of The Twins:

Click to continue for more Transformers artwork including the Destructicons and never-before-seen characters…

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Regarding Lousy Movies & ‘Snob’ Critics

Vic Holtreman — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:18:05 +0000

Well. I’ve taken some heat for reviews in the past, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such… interesting reactions to one of my reviews as I have for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Of course I don’t really care – back in the day it used to bother me when someone flamed me for a movie review, but now I actually get a kick out of it.

Of course I’m not alone – go to any site that gathers up an aggregate of movie critics’ opinions and you’ll see similar numbers when it comes to Transformer 2. The number of positive reviews for the sequel to the highly successful first film is abysmally low:

RottenTomatoes.com: 20%

MetaCritic.org: 35%

TopTenREVIEWS.com: 1.7 out of 4

Even over at IMDB.com, where it’s mainly “regular people” voting for films, it’s only getting 6.7/10 – not bad, but not an overwhelming vote of quality from “Joe Average.”

On the other hand, two days shy of being in theaters for even a full week, the film has already earned over $200 million in the U.S. and close to $400 million worldwide, and our very unscientific poll here on Screen Rant shows that 74% of visitors here rate the film either a 4 or 5 out 5 stars.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

The result? A backlash against movie critics the likes of which I’ve never seen before. There are accusations of impartiality (”you hated the first one so of course you hate this one!”), being too old to “appreciate” the film, being generally unclear on the concept of a “fun, summer popcorn movie,” and my favorite: Not liking it because I (and other reviewers) are snobby, elitist critics.

Generally speaking, action films that do well at the box office tend to get at least half way decent reviews (The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Spider-Man 1 & 2, etc.), but this has to be the best-performing, worst-reviewed film in recent memory.

It seems that Michael Bay (who, for the record, I do not “hate” – his film The Rock is one of my favorite movies to pop in the DVD player from time to time) has tapped into the formula for entertaining the teen moviegoer who is easily amused by cool visual effects, big explosions and titillating shots of hot babes.

What’s ironic is that many of the same “elite” critics that skewered the sequel actually LIKED the first Transformers film, so those accusations are pretty ridiculous. Fine, I’m not one of those who liked the first one, but over at Rotten Tomatoes the first film had almost triple the positive score of the sequel (57% vs 20%), MetaCritics had almost double (61% vs 34%) and at IMDB where non-critics vote it was 7.4 vs 6.7.

The other funny thing is that here at Screen Rant I actually try to write reviews to help the average person decide whether or not to drop their hard earned bucks at the local multiplex. I also generally rate movies within the context and genre of where they fit and what they set out to accomplish. In other words I don’t judge Oscar-contender dramas on the same scale as a great comedy or an awesome Sci-Fi film. That’s why I can give Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, the amazing documentary Enemies of Happiness and Serenity all 5 out of 5 stars. Each of those films has a different goal, and each of them meets or exceeds it within the context of its genre.

Some may call that inconsistent, but I never claimed to be objective in my reviews – I have a certain taste and regular readers come to know that point of view and can judge whether or not they’ll like a film based on that particular point of view.

So as to the accusation of being an “elite snob,” here are a few movies that I consider “popcorn flicks” and which have received good reviews from me – and in some cases I’ve taken heat for being too easy on them:

So if a string of explosions, big CGI effects sequences, bad jokes and sight gags, no plot, lousy acting (HELLO Megan Fox) and foul language in a movie based on a toy line that will attract under-10-year-olds doesn’t strike me as a “fun” movie, that’s not my problem.

If you want GOOD action movies, keep supporting movies like Star Trek, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Hellboy, etc.

However, if you want more empty action movies, by all means, go see Tranformers 2 three or four times. But when you get a bit older and appreciate movies that have a good story and characters you can care about, don’t complain that there’s nothing but crap at the megaplex – because it’ll be your own fault.

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Transformers 2: Optimus Prime Will Blow Your Head Off

Rob Keyes — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:59:57 +0000

Guns! Robots! Explosions! Robots! Megan Fox! Robots!

You guessed it, Michael Bay and this summer’s super blockbuster, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen are coming at you fast and furious and we have two new TV spots to show you.

About a week and a half ago, Screen Rant reported on the five new Transformers 2 TV spots at that time and one of them showed a pile of new footage ending with Optimus pointing his big gun at the viewer to finish off an enemy. That one spot was pretty exciting and hinted at what we’ll be seeing this time around from Michael Bay.

Before that, we saw a pair of new images for the movie with Optimus fighting two giant Decepticons while dual-wielding a pair of his arm-sword-things, something that strangely appeared only once for a brief scene in the first film.

Today’s two teasers up the ante a little more and we see Optimus not only showing off his gun again, but having TWO of them. This guy is crazy and I love it!

I suppose when you think about it, Optimus is the biggest Autobot (that we know of…) and the majority of the bad guys are bigger than him so he needs something to balance it out – Two swords and two guns are his way of doing that.

Watch and enjoy:

There’s definitely more action to be had this time around and these most recent TV spots get me pumped for the flick. If you need to get more of your Transformers fix, check out Screen Rant’s other post today on Wheelie and Soundwave (featuring a new clip from the movie!)

What do you think of the star of this film, Optimus Prime?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hits theaters on June 24, 2009.

Source: Michael Bay

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Transformers 2: Meet Wheelie & Soundwave

Rob Keyes — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:04:07 +0000

As of today, we are less than two weeks away from the premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and as a result, we’re starting to see the final wave of marketing for the movie.

The film premiered in Tokyo, Japan the other day and final touches are being done for the film to make it ready for the opening (or as ready as possible in their overly rushed schedule)

Over the months, we’ve been able to provide quite a bit of information on the 42 Cybertronian characters to be featured in the Transformers sequel, and more recently we’ve started seeing some images pop up online revealing some of the newer characters who we knew about but hadn’t seen much of including Sideways and The Fallen.

Today, we have an image of what Soundwave will look like in the film in one of is alternate modes as well as a scene from the movie introducing us to the small character of Wheelie.

To start, here’s the Satellite version of Soundwave:

The colors do a good job of paying tribute to the original version but I don’t understand this alternate mode just yet. I’ll wait till the movie opens to see how this character will play out as he’s one of the fan favorites from the original.

Next up, here’s Wheelie!

Wow, do I ever hate the look of the character. Frenzy was probably the worst part of the first Transformers movie (second only to Agent Simmons played by John Turturro) and he (it) did not fit with the other characters in the film. The sounds that came from him didn’t make much sense and when he was walking around in plain site on Air Force One, it drove me nuts.

So, what do they do? Give us another character just like him! As soon as this video showed him moving around, I was depressed but then I was actually pleasantly surprised when he started talking (ignoring how he stupidly gets caught in a mouse trap). His attitude and voice reminds me of Rattrap (mouse trap, rat trap… get it?) from the Beast Wars series and he called Megan Fox a B-word which was funny.

Sadly, Wheelie’s dialogue was better than Mikaela’s which made no sense and the CGI when she picks him up with the clamp looked weak.

On a side note, this whole plot point about Sam seeing things and going crazy from touching the shard is not interesting to me and I hope it’s short-lived within the film.

What do you think of Wheelie and Soundwave?

For more TF2 info, check out our Transformers 2 Character Guide. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opens June 24, 2009 and I’ll be there.

Source: Transformers Live Action Movie Blog (The Soundwave pic I edited from their images)

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Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen Tokyo Premiere

Bruce Simmons — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:24:39 +0000

The world premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was held at Roppongi Hills on June 8th in Tokyo, Japan (the film will open wide in Japan on June 19). Those that appeared for the extravaganza were director Michael Bay and cast members Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Ramon Rodriguez, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and Isabel Lucas, and we have a boatload of photos from the event for you.

Check them out below…

Micheal Bay and cast members pose with BumbleBee

Closeup of director Michael Bay and cast members

Machael Bay and Shia LaBeouf

Megan Fox saying hello to the crowd

Click to continue and for lots more pics…

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A Pair Of Transformers 2 Photos

Rob Keyes — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:10:24 +0000

Today we have a pair of brand new photos for Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The first image focuses on main characters Sam Witwicky and Mikaela Banes and the second photo is a very cool shot of Optimus Prime, heroic leader of the Autobots.

The Sam and Mikaela (played by Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox) image depicts the couple riding a motorcycle. Fox’s character apparently works at a bike shop in this film and I’m guessing this will have something to do with how we’re introduced to the Arcee character who takes the form of a motorcycle (or several).

Click to Enlarge

Next up is Optimus Prime posing for combat. You can see that he has one of his arm-swords out for this fight (something he forgot about during his final battle with Megatron in the first Transformers). From the trailer, it looks like he’s in the same little valley where he was getting pummeled and tossed around by what looks like Blackout (who was seemingly destroyed in the first film) and some other large Decepticons.

Click to Enlarge

What do you think of the images?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hits theaters June 24, 2009.

Sources: Collider, Transformers Live

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Michael Bay Discusses Transformers 2 + The New Imax Poster

Rob Keyes — Tue, 26 May 2009 02:50:04 +0000

The LA Times had a chance to sit down with director Michael Bay to discuss his career and next month’s eagerly anticipated Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The conversation touched on the extremely large scope of the film and the difficulties of having it completed in such a short amount of time considering the type of film and post-production work involved.

“This one… is barely going to make it to theaters. You have no idea how complicated my life is.”

Just to tease on the increased effort put into the sequel, Bay compared the digital size of Revenge of the Fallen and its predecessor, citing that the original sat around 15 terabytes with the new one hovering around a whopping 140 terabytes, breaking all records – an obviously massive increase. Much of this has to do with rendering extremely high-resolution and detailed scenes that were shot specifically in IMAX format.

On that note, here is the brand new IMAX poster for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen:

Click for larger version

How are Bay and his crew able to finish this film in so little time, considering the first debuted only two summers ago?

“The way I do it, we work hard, we work fast… We shoot 12-hour days. . . . One thing I can’t stand about Hollywood is waste. I’ve gotten to be a very, very efficient shooter. On average, these type of sequels run in the $230-million to $240-million range and we’re shooting this for a flat $200 million. A lot of these directors have second unit the entire time, that’s millions of dollars just wasted. We do it all ourselves.”

Commenting on Bay’s methods and hard-work ethic, screenwriter Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek, Transformers) had this to say about the Revenge of the Fallen shoot:

“We’re still not quite sure how he does it when he’s directing… People who work closest with him call his method ‘Bay-os’ because it feels like wartime chaos. There are explosions going off in every direction and half as many cameras flying all over the place, and you stand there thinking none of it’s going to make any sense, then you watch the scenes cut together and realize something shocking: He’s choreographed a ballet. He knows exactly which pieces he’s going to use from each camera and he’d already cut the scene together in his head.”

Well, there’s no questioning Michael Bay’s work ethic and his talent at making flashy, explosive scenes, but there are still quite a few folks out there who always seem to find a way to bash the director, his work and his techniques. Bay’s response:

“I don’t take myself so seriously… All these people think I do. Look, a lot of people think it’s fun to hate on Michael Bay. There’s a lot of poison on the Internet. People always try to knock someone who’s had a ton of success in movies. Whatever.”

He does what he wants and he does that successfully – All the credit to him for sticking to his guns and saying it as it is. Michael Bay’s honest and fun attitude came through clearly over the last few months in his public feud with director McG, debating over their respective Robot-focused movie franchises, where Bay basically accused McG of trying to copy his giant robots. In this LA Times interview, Bay admitted to calling up McG to encourage him to play along and have fun with it – obviously to drive hype for both of their films.

If you’re a Transformers fan and are excited for the next film, check out Screen Rant’s Revenge of the Fallen Character Guide. Also, if you’re in for a good laugh, check out this spoof trailer for the movie by Black20 which combines Terminator Salvation with Transformers 2 in an epic battle of humans vs. the machines (or in this case, the Transforminators).

What do you think of the poster and what do you expect of Transformers 2?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hits theaters June 24, 2009.

Source: Los Angeles Times, kino-govno.com (via Collider)

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Transformers 2: Sideways Revealed

Rob Keyes — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:25:28 +0000

Over the months, we’ve seen plenty of material show up online for this summer’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Most of these gave us glimpses at the returning characters from the first film and of many of the new additions to the Cybertronian cast.

One of the new characters debuting in this TF2 goes by the name of Sideways and who takes the form of the luxurious Audi R8 while in vehicle mode but until now, we’ve seen so little on him.

Unlike most of the characters that we’ve seen from the concept art and toy images, we had seen nothing on this character until some toy reviews came online. Those didn’t give good details of what the character would look like in the film unfortunately. He (it?) did however have a quick scene in the trailers running/driving away from Arcee (there were multiple motorcycles in the pursuit) but it didn’t give us a good look at the character in full form.

Well, Michael Bay addressed this directly by putting up an image of the character on his official website:

Click for larger version

He sure looks similar to Barricade, the Decepticon police car from the first film who by a blatant plot hole disappeared during one scene never to return in the movie again. There are rumors that say this is simply that character in the form of a different vehicle but there’s nothing confirmed on that front.

Here’s Barricade for Comparison:

Click for larger version

Note the similarities in their face, chest, arms and the hands with wheel-wrists. From what we know so far, I wrote in Screen Rant’s Transformers 2 Character Guide that Sideways is a courier for the Decepticons, cowardly avoiding combat and hiding behind his larger teammates during battle.

What do you think of this character and do you think it is Barricade?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opens June 24, 2009.

Source: Michael Bay

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Transformers 2 ‘Humor’ As Stupid As The First?

Rob Keyes — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:45:37 +0000

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, co-writers of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, talked to the folks over at SCI FI Wire the other day and briefly discussed the Transformers sequel and what we can expect from it in terms of tone, style and comedy.

Kurtzman and Orci, who together wrote the first Transformers and this summer’s Star Trek, say that Revenge of the Fallen has the same tone as its predecessor and that it’ll flow better than the first.

“Actually, I think you’ll find that it has all the same tone of the first movie… The story’s a little smoother, and it’s a little bit darker, so it does dip in there a little bit, but it has all the same humor, if not more than the first movie.”

We can definitely see the hints of a darker movie from the teaser and full trailer, but from the ShoWest footage for the movie we were shown an example of the humor that the sequel attempts to balance in the film with the action. That “comedic scene” came in the form of Bumblebee crying and gushing lubricant from his eyes as Sam tells him he’s leaving for college without him. It really wasn’t that funny, but I have higher hopes from the other humorous bits that the movie will include.

While I did enjoy a lot of the funny bits in Transformers, some things were just awful and out of place – the worst being when Agent Simmons tells Mikaela (Megan Fox) “She’s a criminal. And criminals are HOT!” Actually, pretty much all the scenes involving John Turturro’s character that were meant to be funny came off as awkward – to the point of taking me out of the movie experience.

If you haven’t watched the first movie in a while (hard to believe it came out nearly two years ago), I recommend watching it before seeing the sequel. I watched it recently and got a kick out of the action scenes which I loved the first time around but I found myself disappointed in the non-action bits. I had forgotten many of the weak parts of the movie until re-watching it again. Most of those parts centered around scenes or dialogue meant to be funny, but instead are childish (in a bad way) and/or nonsensical. From a stupid cop, to a stupid Defense Secretary, to a modelesque computer analyst and to the infamous government agent, Simmons, many supporting characters are intentionally written to not make sense and act stupid.

Is that what we’re getting more of? Does that sell more toys, tickets or DVDs? There were of course other characters that fans complained about but I enjoyed their comedic scenes for the most part.

I really hope this movie is better-constructed and well-developed. I want the characters to make sense in their roles and for their motivations to be believable. Most of all, I want fans to enjoy this more than the first and for the movie to earn itself some better reviews than the first did two summers ago. I hope it’s not too much to ask for.

What do you think of what the writers say about the humor about the Transformers sequel, is it a good or bad thing?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hits theaters June 24, 2009.

Source: SCI FI Wire

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John Turturro Plays Two In Transformers 2

Rob Keyes — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 05:59:50 +0000

Agent Simmons, the dumbest character of Transformers and possibly one of the worst film characters ever is brought back as a main character in the sequel, Revenge of the Fallen. He of course is played by John Turturro.

They must really love Mr. Turturro because now it’s being reported that he is playing a second character in Transformers 2 – Or should I say voicing.

A user on the official Michael Bay forums read some interesting information from the French movie magazine Première Ciné Live and was kind enough to translate it for us. In it, we have some potential plot spoilers from some set reports as well as a hint of Turturro voicing the character, Jetfire.

Jetfire (also called Skyfire in the original Transformers cartoon) is a flyer with the Autobots. It was not always that way, as Jetfire has history with Starscream and was part of the Decepticons for a stint before switching over to the good guys. In the film, Jetfire takes the vehicular form of an SR-71 Blackbird. Coming full circle, it was rumored late last year that in the film Agent Simmons users some sort of radiation tracker to locate the Blackbird at some point in the film.

I paraphrased the loosely-translated quote so it actually makes some sense (as well as corrected an enormous amount of typos) [Spoiler Alert]:

Set: Egypt, in front of Kheops Pyramid, stands an ancient palace built for King Faruk’s guests. At “Action”, Shia runs through the yard, stops at the doorstep and hits the door with his shoulder. Megan Fox, John Turturro and Ramon Rodriguez follow next and hurry inside the building.

Shia heads up, shout a few words at an imaginary Bumblebee, and gets in.
Three cars, the Camaro, the red TRAX and the green BEAT, start quickly and stop a bit further away to look out. The three vehicules are driven by black-suited (and thereby “invisible”) stuntmen behind the smoked glass.

At the end of the day, the crew moves to the third and smallest pyramid, Mykerinos.

John Turturo, back as the always-angry Agent Simmons has a scene involving him climbing up a few stones running from some Transformer (to be CGI-inserted in later). This hasn’t been done for 30 years as Egypt had forbidden filming on the pyramids as a result of too many accidents.

Michael Bay says:

I had the idea of these two stupid Transformers (Skids and Mudflap). They’re twins who can’t stop bickering, but they do heroic things at the beginning of the movie.

Bumblebee has become more serious. He doesn’t want to leave Sam’s parents’ garage.

There is also an old Transformer, who loses screws and bolts at every move and it’s John Turturro voicing him.

I’m already worried about this movie with how he describes the two new Autobot twins. When we got our first look at the twins from Transformers 2, I described them as looking stupid with their disproportionate faces and now we know that’s exactly what they are. What a great decision to include these characters over of any of the unused original lineup from the cartoon…

So, what do you think of John Turturro’s characters?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opens June 24 2009.

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Megatron Is In Transformers 2 After All!

Rob Keyes — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:41:22 +0000

He’s in, he’s out, and no he’s in!

Michael Bay you mischievous bugger. Well, we have confirmation that Megatron will be in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

This all started way back in September of last year when some concept art images of a new Megatron vehicle mode appeared online. The images depicted the Decepticon leader in a Cybertronian tank form with his head popping out between the treads – a significant change from his vehicle mode in the first movie.

This started a debate about who the title character “The Fallen” may represent and many wondered if this new incarnation of Megatron was now the character Galvatron (Click here for more on this). An obvious possibility was that all of this was simply misinformation for which Michael Bay kept preaching about as a strategy to throw eager fans off.

A few months later, Michael Bay told Empire magazine that Megatron would not in fact, be in the Transformers sequel and that those images were just some pictures for an upcoming Hasbro toy. This got me curious as there were many angles and very detailed concept art for just some toy not to be featured in the film. Hmmm… Could this be more misinformation?

Well, this morning some new toy images were made available online courtesy of The-Arker and they revealed the new Megatron figure for Revenge of the Fallen which matched the original concept art we posted about in September. On the box was a description explaining how Megatron returns:

Rebuilt with parts cannibalized from other Decepticons, Megatron rises once again to lead his army. Though the Allspark destroyed him once, he can now feel its power coursing through his circuitry. It calls him to seize his rightful place as ruler over the puny planet on which he was imprisoned and destroyed, and from which he will launch his conquest of the Universe. Optimus Prime is all that stands between him and victory, and the Autobots Leader has done a poor job of hiding himself. At long last, Megatron knows exactly where his enemy is and he has power enough to destroy him.

And here are the images:

Unfortunately, The-Arker saw fit to place their logo on his face but you can still see from the lower right corner on the front packaging that it is the same as the first movie.

This got me thinking again that Megatron must be in the film. I mean, how could he not? He’s the Decepticon leader and main villain, they can’t possibly leave him out of the rest of the series – So he must return and if that’s the case, this must occur at some point during Revenge of the Fallen.

The toy images also match some concept art from a while back and the mystery silhouette:

Coincidence or not, later on in the day after these toy images debuted, writer Roberto Orci (a source of several confirmations in the past) confirmed that Megatron will be in the sequel afterall. You lied to me Bay, you lied to us all!

Orci wrote “Megatron returns!” In response to the following question on the TFW2005 forums:

Can We Get some Kinda Info, I mean, its March, LOL. We really don’t Know anything really. Ya’ll have been teasing us for the longest, just a lil something that nobody here knows

It’s nice to finally get confirmation on this… or is it more misinformation [cue dramatic twist music]. So, what do you think about Megatron’s return?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen debuts June 24 2009.

Sources: The-Arker (via Collider), TheBadandUgly.com

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MTV Spoilers Footage: Transformers 2, Watchmen & More

Vic Holtreman — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 04:57:22 +0000

Tonight MTV aired a “Spoilers” show with new footage from Watchmen, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Harry Potter 6, Land of the Lost and a behind the scenes featurette from Star Trek. Out of the three, the only one that actually made me look forward to one of these a little more was (believe it or not) Land of the Lost.

We have the clips for you below.

You can judge for yourself, but to me the Harry Potter footage didn’t influence me either way – they just indicated that there will be both more humor and action in the next film. I was REALLY disappointed by the Star Trek segment because I could have sworn I’d been reading there would be new footage – but there wasn’t. Sure, a lot of behind the scenes stuff – but no new movie scenes that I could see.

Transformers 2? Yeah, whatever – LOTS of big action pieces and ginormous explosions. I’ll give this one an extra star when I review it if they just leave the retarded humor from the first one behind and tackle this one as a serious action flick.

The clip from Land of the Lost actually made me chuckle. That’s not saying a lot, but it’s more than the previous trailers/clips have gotten out of me.

What worried me the most was the Watchmen footage… it was a full scene from the film showing Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II going into a prison during a riot. I’ve started hearing some not so positive things about the film (from “regular” people, not fans of the graphic novel) and I saw some of what they’ve been talking about here.

Silk Spectre jumping out of the Owl Ship, landing on the roof in spike heels and doing a tuck and roll just looked… silly. And in the slow-mo fight scene in the corrider it didn’t look like she was hitting/kicking her adversaries with enough power to really knock them back the way she did. I don’t know… I could be overanalyzing it. Check out all of these for yourself and tell us what YOU think.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen behind the scenes

Land of the Lost clip

Harry Potter 6 behind the scenes

Star Trek behind the scenes

Watchmen prison break clip

Source: MTV Movies

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Autobot Showcase Video… But Where’s Ratchet?

Rob Keyes — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:07:49 +0000

The folks over at Jalopnik, the car information website, have posted a video showing “never-seen-before sneak-peek footage from Transformers 2” as well as a large gallery of images for the concept Corvette Stingray (Sideswipe), An even newer Camaro (Bumblebee) and the new Chevy Trax (Mudflap).

The video is basically a showcase for the Autobot vehicles of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, with an obvious focus on the new GM vehicles featured in the film as it is essentially an advertisement video. There’s not much new in the video itself – I personally just like watching it for that epic music that starts playing half-way through while a convoy of all the Autobots driving together… all of the Autobots minus Ratchet, that is.

On that note, what I’d really like to talk about is the noticeable absence of Ratchet in this video and in many of the behind-the-scenes set photos that have popped up online over the last few months. This is something I thought about a while ago wanted to talk about earlier but couldn’t find the right time to do so – until this video at Jalopnik.com.

Ratchet, the loyal medic of the Autobots took the vehicular form of an emergency response Hummer H2 in the Michael Bay’s first live action Transformers film. While he didn’t get much screen time (arguably, none of the Transformers did), he did manage to become one of my two favorite characters along with Ironhide.

In the final act of the Transformers movie, I really became attached to the character with his fearlessness in charging and attacking the inappropriately named Devastator (the giant Decepticon tank who should have been called Brawl) as well as how he and Ironhide defended Shia Labeouf’s character, Sam Witwicky while he ran to get to the building for helicopter pickup. I even loved his machine gun weapon which only showed up for a split second in the movie.

Back to the point, what does his absence in much of the material we’ve seen for the movie all mean? Could he be the (or one of the) good guy(s) to not live through this movie? Or is he simply behind the scenes doing something else as a support character?

We can’t really expect all of the characters to live through encounters with the insanely huge Devastator or the aliens-esque title character, The Fallen (Both of whose images were revealed yesterday and can be seen here). There was already one casualty with Jazz being torn in half in the first film so there’s likely to be a few more with this film – I just hope Ratchet isn’t one of them. He deserves a big presence in this film with the lack of screen time he received in the first.

The full trailer debuts tomorrow night attached as a preview to Friday the 13th and we’ll have it up on Screen Rant as soon as it is available online. If you’re craving more Transformers stuff in the meantime, check out this 5 minute interview with Michael Bay discussing the movie and hinting at a third as well as the first official teaser trailer for the film.

What do you think of the new Autobot team and Ratchet’s absence?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opens June 26, 2009.

Source: Jalopnik

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Enhanced Look At The Transformers 2 Poster

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 07:31:46 +0000

Hey gang – well you all know how much I love the last Transformers movie, but despite that I’ve got the brand new official Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (aka Transformers 2) poster for you right here.

Yes, I know you can find this poster on a gazillion other websites, but we have the most detailed look at it right here thanks to the magic of my very basic Photoshop skills!

Enough yammering, check it out below…

The official Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen poster

You can see the original over at Yahoo! Movies – actually I encourage you to shoot on over there and see the difference between that one and this “enhanced” version.

I actually think it’s pretty cool looking – it gives a sense of menace about the film. The question is: Does it fit the movie? I have NO idea at the moment, but I think that if they ejected the stupid humor from the first film it would make for a much better sequel.

But what I think isn’t important… what do YOU think?

The Michael Bay uber-extravaganza Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opens on June 26, 2008.

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Transformers 2 Trailer: Not Until February

Rob Keyes — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:11:54 +0000

It looks like we may finally have some clue as to when the first trailer will hit for one of the most anticipated films of 2009: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It’s looking like at the earliest, we won’t be seeing a trailer until February 1, 2009.

Screen Rant is known for not being the biggest supporter of last year’s summer megahit, Transformers, but I for one am not as negative towards it as most of the SR team. Although the film had its obvious flaws and weaknesses, I enjoyed it overall, especially seeing the second time and onwards.

After my first viewing I was very picky and negative towards the movie but after that, seeing it again allowed me to take it all in and focus on everything rather than the bad parts. That allowed me to look past a few of the issues and I could enjoy the good parts more. And there certainly are some awesome parts – those are the ones that stick out in memory as months go by. And isn’t that was a good flick should do?

It was not the best thing ever, but it had the potential to be. I’d probably give it a 6.5/10 if I had to rate it and it loses a few points for some awful characters and dialogue, among other problems we’ve all gone over before. I don’t get why they put such ridiculous characters in the film when they don’t need to – the selling point is the giant robots, not the secondary actors. But that’s neither here nor there now and it’s time to move forward in anticipation of the sequel.

Back to the story now - Michael “Explosions” Bay took the time to give a little update on his official site and it went something like this:

“Hey everyone. Back from Egypt and Jordan – we had a wonderful shoot over there. I will miss the crew they were an amazing bunch of people and a lot of fun.”

“I’m stuck in the edit room up to my eye balls – also finished producing Friday the 13th and The Unborn – coming out the after the new year. Our trailer for Transformers [2] you have been asking about – First there will be a teaser poster soon after the new year, and the teaser trailer will be out either in the theaters early Feb. or on the Superbowl. Cannot decide yet. I’m going to release some set stills on this site in a few weeks. I’ll keep you informed. Going back to do more selects now from my portable avid that I take home from work. It’s late, see you.”

A little typo here and there, but that’s okay – it’s just a forum. What’s important here are the potential dates for the trailer, which many (like me) are wildly anticipating. Super Bowl XLIII takes place on February 1st so that would make it only 8-9 weeks away which is pretty soon. Bay also mentions it could be in theatres sometime in early February so we’re pretty much assured we’ll be getting the trailer within 2 months.

I can see them doing both and having a full trailer appear attached to some theatrical feature in February and doing a Superbowl spot. This year, Iron Man ran a TV spot during the insanely popular sporting event and it generated a pile of hype.

Wouldn’t it be sweet if they attached it to Fanboys? It would sure increase that movie’s box-office take.

Last month I wrote about Bay finishing up principal photography on Revenge of the Fallen and about some possible spoilers. It could just be misinformation and I really hope it is. If you want to know what I mean and want to be spoiled, check that article out.

Are you psyched for the trailer like me?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen brings back Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel and John Turtorro and it hits theaters everwhere on June 26, 2009.

Source: Michael Bay

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Transformers 2 Shot For Imax

Rob Keyes — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:54:11 +0000

IMAX corporation has announced that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will have three sequences shot with IMAX® cameras. So for those of you who like to check out the summer blockbusters on the really big screen, you’ll get at least three scenes specifically tailored for your viewing pleasure, with the rest of the film (up)converted to the IMAX format, but not shot using the special cameras.

Building upon its box office success, the first Transformers film was re-released three months after its inital opening as Transformers: The Imax Experience with a few added scenes. This time they’re taking the initiative and pre-planning for an IMAX release right from the start. This news follows the trend begun by The Dark Knight having several scenes shot in this way and the news that Jon Favreau will shoot Iron Man 2 at least partially in IMAX. I expect that in the future, we’ll be seeing more and more summer tent-pole films filmed for this format.

So what can we expect from this?

Insanely high quality and mind-blowing action sequences, probably. Unfortunately this “high quality” has nothing to do with the actual screenplay which was the real issue with the first Transformers.

Oh, and hi-res Megan Fox on an enormous screen – that should sell a ticket or two.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is due out June 26, 2009

Source: Coming Soon

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First Look At Megatron From Transformers 2?

Rob Keyes — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:44:32 +0000

Just over a week ago, we found out we would not be getting a full trailer for the sequel to Transformers until next May. And why should we when when the movie is marketed, shared and hyped for free with the simple appearance of a set photo, a fan-made concept shot, or a rumor of a certain Autobot or Decepticon’s appearance?

So, faithfully adding to that mix, we have some images which may be giving us a first look at Megatron, and maybe answer whether he will be making a return in the sequel. Transformers World 2005 scored some images that are supposedly concept art from Transformers 2.

Take a look and see what you think:

The new design for Megatron pays tribute to Galvatron (the recreation of Megatron) and could represent “The Fallen” for which the film is titled. We know from the first movie that Bay doesn’t utilize character names properly so this could be the case here. There is already confusion over how Devastator will appear in the sequel if they called some other character that in the first, as well as including one of his component Constructicons in Bonecrusher.

The vehicle shown in the images is designed in the alien protoform style we saw in the first film and the pictures appear to originate from toy packaging. The tank itself looks pretty cool but having Megatron’s face centered and sticking out between the treads looks ridiculous. The concept of “vehicle mode” is that the transformers are not robots, but vehicles – and having his face stick out doesn’t really fit.

I can only imagine that if these are legit, Megatron’s pretty face is there for all of us to see to make him intimidating and allow him to give a little monologue while demolishing things with that mixer whisk of a cannon.

If this vehicle appears in the film, I hope it’s not for long. I would like to see Megatron/Galvatron/Fallen or whoever get a proper vehicle mode that follows the “robots in disguise” motto – I mean, that’s the only reason these robots and the movie are called Transformers.

However after all that, keep in mind, we did hear from Mr. Michael Bay a few months back that misinformation about the sequel would be leaked intentionally to throw off fans. Therefore this could include fake scripts, false reports and yes, even fabricated concept art or images which this could easily fall under.

So, what do you think? Do you dig Megatron’s new outfit? Are these images even real?

Source: Transformers World 2005 via Latino Review

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