Blog Transformers Passion

If there's any doubt left that Michael Bay's Transformers is going to be a huge deal for Paramount/DreamWorks this coming summer, it's probably been squashed by the amount of Transformers everything that can be seen at ShoWest this year. Besides the banner ads all over Bally's Paris, Paramount actually brought the vehicles used in the movie to the ShoWest exhibition floor to give the theatre delegates a chance to see the Transformers in car and truck format up close. The Paramount booth was pretty packed, making it difficult to take clean pictures of the vehicles, but you can get some idea what these things look like here.

'Transformers' Writers Talk Fanboy Pressure, 'E.T.' Inspiration, Sequel Ideas
Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman explain why Cybertron is in, Soundwave is out.
Are there two men who fanboys envy more than Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman? Not only is this prolific writing duo behind the latest installments of the "Zorro" and "Mission: Impossible" franchises, but now they are knee-deep in reinventing "Star Trek" and everyone's favorite robots in disguise, the Transformers.

The duo took a break from their pre-production work on "Star Trek" and last-minute tweaking of "Transformers" dialogue (the movie marks their second collaboration with director Michael Bay) to dish with MTV News those projects and more.
MTV: Transformers fans have been all over you from almost the moment you signed on to write. Are you still feeling the heat?

Roberto Orci: When some of the early designs were leaked, some of the die-hard fans felt the integrity of the Transformers had been betrayed. Then when they saw some of the footage, they started to say, "I understand now. They're doing the movie version. It totally retains the integrity of what we love, but it's a whole other level."

Alex Kurtzman: We gave [the designs] a lot of thought. It was really a team effort to figure out how to keep it real but also to take Transformers to a new level.

IESB.net posted an interview with Shia LaBeouf (Spike) where he indicated that the MPAA gave Transformers a R-rating due to intense action and violence. After an intervention from Spielberg it was changed to PG-13. Ironic though if you ever got the chance to watch the documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" (consider it an R so not for children) which showed how the MPAA tends to be more lenient and open for big name directors and the studio films but indifferent or downright belligerent to independent films.

Regardless, it is good news for Transfans and it shows that its always good to have a big name producer helping with a film to provide that extra grease you need at the right time. Since Spielberg related films rarely have a commentary track for DVDs, I hope this one will be exception as I wouldn't mind knowing what scenes where considered enough for an 'R' rating. Sadly the MPAA discourages any transparency so not holding my breath on that happening.

"We were very proud of what we've seen so far of the movie and we thought it was time to show some people so the hardcore fan base could relax a little bit," he said. "They're not relaxing a lot but they've relaxed a little bit since we've put it out. It's a lot of fun. It's very true to these characters."

The filmmakers know it is a double edged sword of having a massive built-in audience, but a large number of equally difficult critics to please. "When anybody's passionate about something, you have a certain responsibility to try to deliver what drove their passion. What is great on "Transformers" is that people have made a lot of assumptions about what they're going to look like and they're all wrong because we haven't even seen 'em, so I don't know what they think they've seen. There isn't a single visual effects shot that's finished in the movie yet. So what's great is that it's going to keep getting better and better."

Zack Ward, who co-stars in Michael Bay's upcoming Transformers movie, told SCI FI Wire that he plays a character resembling Bill Paxton's cowardly soldier from Aliens in the film, an action epic based on the 1980s toy, TV and comics franchise. "It's a $200 million movie, man," Ward said in an interview. "It was insane."

Ward plays Donnelly, one of a group of special-forces rangers who encounter the title characters, alien machines who arrive on Earth to continue their galactic conflict.

"We're inside Iraq, coming back from a recon mission behind enemy lines, landing in the Blackhawk helicopter," Ward said. "I basically play the Bill Paxton character from [James Cameron's 1986 sequel] Aliens, but my character is a Boston smart-mouth, not a California surfer-dude smart-mouth."

Transformers will follow five separate storylines, which will all converge with a final battle between the Autobots and Decepticons, starting at Hoover Dam and ending in an American city that looks a lot like Los Angeles.

"It was an amazing film to work on," Ward said. "A lot of the robots and Transformers are actually half robot and half CGI, so there's a great integration between real and computer-generated things. It really creates a different platform for the audience." Transformers opens July 4. —Ian Spelling

With only five months to go until Michael Bay’s Transformers start smashing the crap out of each other at a cinema near you, everyone who knows their Autobots from their Decepticons is desperate to catch a glimpse of these most feted of 80s animated icons. Of course, 2007 might all be about the movie, but for those of you who remember visiting the toy shop circa 1986, the real allure of Transformers were the toys.
By Empireonline.com