SlashFilm was good enough to report that the full length trailer for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will be premiere before J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot… which doesn’t hit theaters until May 8, 2009.
Now you may be thinking: “But Kofi, that’s only about a month before Transformers 2 hits theaters on June 26, 2009!” And you would be correct: it does seem like a slim window of time in which to lure audiences into the theater.
But then again, a lot of the marketing work for Transformers 2 is already being done… literally as I type this.
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Whether you love it or hate it before you’ve seen it, the Internet is keeping Transformers 2 in the mouths and minds of a lot of people. Why would the studio spend money on half a dozen trailers and two-dozen TV spots when every piece of concept art, location art, production stills, video clips and behind-the-scenes news is being distributed amongst the public for free?
Also lets keep in mind that this is a sequel we’re talking about, which means that, excluding the percentage of people who hated the first Transformers, (95% of whom are apparently either readers or writers here at Screen Rant,) the second installment already has a sizable built-in audience.
Concept Art from Transformers: 2 Revenge of the Fallen
Finally, as /Film pointed out, the first full trailer for Transformers debuted before Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End, which was released in May of 2007; roughly a month before the first Transformers movie. So really, all we’re seeing is the same game plan as last time being put into action.
Still, May 2009 is a long time for me to wait to see Devastator rage on the big screen. Of course, a teaser trailer for Transfomers: Revenge of the Fallen is rumored to be hitting theaters this winter, but don’t expect to see anything too cool, there. Just buckle down like I am, and wait for May to get here.
Source: SlashFilm
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40 Comments
if your right about this whole marketing strategy then damn all the power to them…
This movie will be as cornball as the first if not more.
Whens that Robotron film coming out ?
Right before Star Trek? How appropriate.
And just as much an insult to the franchise, 790. It really upsets me to see Transformers so poorly represented to the general audiences.
Transformers had some great scenes but overall was killed by the story… (The scene where the Robots are in the back yard, was the nuke the fridge moment)
The supporting cast of Voight and Torturro didn’t help ether.
One thing that took me out of the film was having the US, Secretary of Defense sporting a 12 gauge… (Is this earth?)
Gimme a break the Secretary of Defense would never be in that position.
He would have plenty of Blackwater troops for that,,,,,
Sector 7, was more of a joke than a real serious threat…
I could go on and on,,,,,,,,,,,,
As could I, my friend. As could I.
And have, depending on who you ask.
you’re 100% right 790, I absolutely hated all those parts you mentioned.
lol Kofi, on the % of people who hated the transformers movie
Isn’t it possible that the director and writers have realized their folly with the bad characters and dumb organization and actually created a Sector 7 that’s like a real government group and characters with real depth?
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(silence)
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(crickets chirping)
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Alright already! The effects will be amazing but the characters will suck, like before!
Coming out on my birthday, yeah !!
They should kill Sam and keep Michaela !! Hated to see him take more space then the robots. Like Jar jar Binks in Star Wars.
why does everyone talk like the movie was supposed to be serious? Robots from outerspace? C’mon. Good ‘ol fun. Some stupidity that I could have done without, but not because it ‘wasn’t real world’
anyhoo, the pick above looks like aircraft carrier described in ‘Bay’s treatment’ that’s been floating around. maybe it is legit…
@Panda
Yeah, I read about an aircraft carrier as well. Would all the planes also transform?
I suppose in Transformers 3 he will have Metroplex, a city that transforms.
Ooh yes, “Teenager and Trashy Girlfriend With Robots That Happen to Transform 2″ is coming, sweet…
Oh, that movie meant to have the Transformers as MAIN characters? I couldn’t tell while watching it, I thought the movie was about those two idiots and the robots had very small side roles…
Yeah, Ken, I wouldn’t expect the robots to bat anything more than guest stars in this one either. More likely, they’ll just be props again, not actual characters.
Although I’m not a huge fan of Bay, and was disappointed by the first viewing of TF, I reallized I was expecting the old series, but that isn’t what Bay was delivering. What he did deliver was a movie for TEENAGERS with good action and FX, and little references to the 80’s series for the nestalgic.
TF is a cheesy franchise anyway, just watch it for fun, or don’t watch it and complain about it. whatever floats your boat.
Just to stir the pot a little
And let me preface this by saying I am a classic transformer fan and I am just playing devils advocate here for a little bit since I did enjoy the movie for what it was.
A lot of people say that the story was bad because they focused more on the humans than the bots, and that it wasnt serious enough etc……
How would you have written the story? Could you have started with them on Cybertron? That would be an infinite amount of bots and special effects that would have run the movie 2 or 3 times higher into the production budget. Could you have started with the Ark crashing down into the mountain? Sure you could have, but then how do you explain where they came from? There are a lot of reasons things were done the way they were done I am sure. I will not question the writing or directing since it was still a great action movie one way or another. Lets say this wasnt called Transformers, would it have been a good movie? I think so. Sometimes you just have to take a step back from everything and look at it as the overall project and say “wow, this is actually a good popcorn flick that has a lot of action and some good effects.”
*Devils Advocate rant over*
I do agree with all the copmplainers about one thing though, if it is called transformers, at least make the bots look like the classic bots when in bot form. I know they wanted to make it seem logical about all the moving parts and such, but THEY ARE GIANT FREAKING ROBOTS FROM ANOTHER PLANET!!!! What is logical about that in the first place? Make their faces distinguishable, and when in combat it woul dbe nice to know where one bot ends and another begins, instead of it being one big pile of metal for crying out loud.
*complaining rant over*
All in all, I am looking forward to Transformers 2 as we will have many more bots and the real Devastator and more of Megan Fox’s sweet sweet…..oops, I forgot the no profanity rules…..more of Megan Fox’s….wonderful…..acting ability….yeah, thats it :/
“Lets say this wasnt called Transformers, would it have been a good movie?”
No, it wouldn’t. It still would have been horrible, but I wouldn’t have been upset by it.
Why would it have been horrible if it was called something else? What was so terrible about it?
I am not trying to be argumentative, just trying to see the perspective.
No story. No plot development. No character development. Just action and explosions for the sake of having action and explosions.
For me, that’s not entertaining.
OK, so lets look at that…..
No Story: The cube (which they told what it is capable of at the beginning) came to earth, the humans had to try to keep it out of the hands of the evil robots so they could not take over the planet and needed the help of the good robots to do it. That seems like a decent story there, along with development for the plot. Nobody ever said the movie was ONLY about the robots.
No Character Development: I think they did a good job with Sam, Mechaela and Lennox, everyone else I can agree, not much character development, so I can see this point.
I think that as an overall, most of the world gets excited about the action and explosions enough (I admit, it works for me on a smaller level) to let some of the characters go under-developed, and the story to be loosely set so it works as an overall. That is just my opinion though, and everyone else is entitled to their own.
You made my point for me about no story. It’s basically the exact same idea used in every other action movie. “Here’s what everyone’s fighting over, here are the sides, watch them fight.” No story.
As for the characters, they did a lousy job with all of them. I didn’t care what happened to any of them. Stock characters across the board, and flimsy stock at that.
Again, I agree with some of your points and disagree with some others, but thats why we all have our own views on things
Here’s the thing - I’m NOT a Transformers fan, so for all I know their personalities matched what you guys all know and love.
But to me what was retarded about this movie included:
- Giant robots that have “lived” for thousands of years, yet at least one of which talked like a stupid 15 year old valley girl.
- Cliche idiot parents.
- Putting in an idiot FBI agent.
- An utterly out of place masturbation joke in the middle of the movie.
- Robots that were SO complex that during fight scenes I literally could not tell what the hell was going on.
Vic
Yeah, the masturbation joke was very out of place, as was Bumblebee “lubricating” on John Turturo.
I am not saying that Transformers was a perfect movie (not by a long shot). I am just saying it was very enjoyable to me and I dont think it was as terrible as everyone says.
“Here’s the thing - I’m NOT a Transformers fan, so for all I know their personalities matched what you guys all know and love.”
No, they didn’t match the personalities I know and love. The ones whose names were previously attached to characters in other series did not match the personalities from any of the previous series. Optimus Prime came closest, but even he fell seriously short in some significant areas.
“Giant robots that have “lived” for thousands of years, yet at least one of which talked like a stupid 15 year old valley girl.”
Possibly millions of years. Still, I agree with you about, I assume, Jazz. That was a serious misinterpretation of his character on the part of the writers.
I also have to agree with you about the rest of those points, Vic. Orci and Kurtzman wrote a bad movie, and an even worse adaptation. They are why I have given up hope for the Star Trek movie to be any good. They are two of the reasons why I’ve written off the Bayformers sequel.
Wow, thats a lot of hate right there. The Jazz interpretation was updated for today, and made a lot of sense, even though it was quite stereotypical. Scatman Cruthers did his voice in the old cartoon and he was “Hip-Hop” for the time, and thats what they did with him now. We have to come out of the 80’s for the more up to date outlook on life and the way things are these days. I do wish they left bumblebee as a VW Bug, especially since there are new ones of those out there, but I can understand why they made him a sportier car because, other than old TF fans, who is going to want to see a VW Bug driving around?? I mean really? And they hit his and Sam’s relationship on the head I think. I mean, they were closer than any of the other characters in the old cartoon, and they became really good friends in the movie as well, or as close as you can come in a week.
On the flip side, I do think Prime would have been much more broken up about Jazz being ripped in half than “oh, Jazz”. I also think that the Megatron/Starscream relationship, although briefly touched on, was not developed enough.
“Wow, thats a lot of hate right there.”
Yeah, where this movie, and the people who made it, is concerned, I’m filled with hate.
“Scatman Cruthers did his voice in the old cartoon and he was “Hip-Hop” for the time, and thats what they did with him now.”
Perhaps, but the voice is one thing, the vocal mannerisms are another. This thing with Jazz is that he’s about doing things with style, and he love Earth culture. Not just Hip-Hop, but all of it. Rock & Roll, Jazz, and Classical music would also be included. He’d draw on all aspects of the culture, but he was written as only drawing on one in a very stereotypical way. That didn’t ring true to me.
Bumblebee was more like Wreck-Gar than Bumblebee. Aside from that, yeah, he seemed to be close to Sam, but this was not the kind of thing I saw between Bumblebee and Spike in the original series. This was more of a bodyguard than friends who shared a mutual curiosity about each other’s worlds. In any case, he struck me more as being a renamed Hot Shot than actually being Bumblebee.
On the choice of vehicle mode, though, I don’t care one way or the other about him being a sports car. It’s not like that was the first time.
As for Prime, I actually think they got the reaction to Jazz’s death right. It was his reaction to Bumblebee being captured that was a glaring mistake form my perspective.
Megatron and Starscream, though, that relationship did not even come close to matching what we saw in the original series. I was almost put in mind of the Armada version of the relationship.
agreed that some of the low-brow humor was out of place and unnecessary (and I would add the whole Bernie Mac scene, while funny, was out of place), but some of the jokes making fun of the Transformers franchise itself were a great addition. With that, a good 30 minutes could have been trimmed and nothing would be lost.
As far as character development, what do you expect from a 2 hour movie? I can tell you that the pilot of the 80’s TV series and the first ten issues of the comis didn’t develop these characters any better. Frankly, the movie developed the Autobots as well and teh series ever did, which was jsut to get an idea of their personalities. The Decepticons, not so much, but I took it as they were mostly soldiers and weren’t meant to develop much. Starscream and Megatron, the groundwork was laid (albeit subtly) so it can be expanded in the future (my guess). And as far as caring about them, I didn’t really care about the characters at the end of IM either, but I don’t expect to because it’s a ‘comicbook’ movie.
TF wasn’t a perfect movie by any standards, but I enjoyed watching it a second time, which is more than I can say for a lot of movies out there, crude jokes and all.
That’s easy, all you need is a better script. You make it sound like only Hollywood is capable of making something, sure they got the cash but not the brains: Look and learn:
TRANSFORMERS LITHOGRAPHS
http://www.geocities.com/oblivionsgallery13/featuredartists.html
“As far as character development, what do you expect from a 2 hour movie?”
Obviously more than you. I expect to be able to care about the characters, about what happens to them. I expect enough development to make them more than one dimensional caricatures. I expect characters who stand out from the background instead of being indistinguishable from the background.
Any half-competent writer should be able to manage that. I’ve seen movies with shorter running times than Bayformers pull it off. I’ve seen half hour episodes of Transformers cartoons pull it off, while the live action movie doesn’t even come close.
“I can tell you that the pilot of the 80’s TV series and the first ten issues of the comis didn’t develop these characters any better.”
There’s a flaw in that comparison. Depending on how you look at things, the pilot of the original series had over 30 characters introduced in just over 60 minutes, or nearly 30 introduced in about 22 minutes.
The first 10 issues of the original comic had even more characters introduced in those issues. That series also had even more going on in those 10 issues than the movie did.
Looking at the numbers, including the time you alloted for each of those series versus the movie, the cartoon and comics had less time to develop more characters than the movie did, especially if you don’t count the Decepticons in the live-action movie.
Your comparison falls flat on its face as a result. The cartoon and comics actually did a better job in less time.
“TF wasn’t a perfect movie by any standards, but I enjoyed watching it a second time”
Good for you. I didn’t even enjoy watching it once.
That was one of the flaws, too much screen time for JAR JAR, opps SHia Le Beef. Not enough of Transformers, They didn’t even make the other badguys speak at all.
Megan Fox was the positive thing in this whole expensive mess.
They’ve got plenty of characters in STAR TREK, not all of them have plenty of screentime but we do care about them, the robots could die, I didn’t give them any thought.
Plus Optimus’ 2cents speech at the end made me laugh so hard it sounded phoony.
The Comic and cartoon did a better job in their short media then the film.
That version of Transformers based on a different script was closer to what I’s expect of Transformers even if they’re just production paintings.
http://www.geocities.com/oblivionsgallery13/featuredartists.html
“As far as character development, what do you expect from a 2 hour movie?”
Panda, don’t take this personally, but that’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.
There are literally HUNDREDS of movies (if not more) with amazing character development, many in much less than 2 hours. Hell, you can get decent character development on a 40+ year old half hour episode of The Twilight Zone!
Vic
I’m sure I’ve said much more rediculous things on here before.
But really my point is that there is only so much room for character development in a 120 to 150 minutes. There is not possible way to develop 12 or so Transformer characters and human characters. The main human characters were developed ok, like them or not. The primary beef is that the humans were the focus, which was intentional. It was written for a teenage audience (hence teenagers as the primary focus), and it was successful at it. It angers diehard fans apparently, but it is what it is.
Sure, 22 minute TV episodes can develop a one or two characters really well, but that is typically one open-and-shut story that focuses on that character. But, I disagree that there are many movies that were successful at developing more than four or five characters, particularly action movies because so much of the screen time is action scenes rather than dramatic or character focused scenes.
I’m in a minority regarding this movie I know and no one probably cares what points I’ve made, but I just think there were more positives than negatives. I’d also like to see a lot changed in a sequel that probably won’t happen, but ‘oh well’ - I’m not the one bank-rolling it.
@Panda
“There is no possible way to develop 12 or so Transformer characters and human characters.”
Ah, now I see what you mean. That is indeed a difficult task.
Although they managed to do it just fine in the classic WWII film “The Dirty Dozen.”
Vic
That’s funny Vic, I was thinking of the same response. You beat me to it, lol.
Point taken… but not enough robots in that one though - j/k
Transformers was a joke, plain, simple, end of story.
Is that because it wasnt dark and gritty?
@DarkGrittyMovieLover
You’ll fit right in here, bud.
Vic
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