When Michael Bay was filming Transformers 2, he was significantly hampered by the writer’s strike, yet he forged forward to meet his release deadlines, pulling the project together during a time when this strike was destroying other movies and getting decent quality TV series canceled along the way.
But when Transformers 2 came out, despite doing very well at the box office, literary giants were aiming their high-brow movie-review flame throwers at the project and roasting it alive. (I might have snookered something in there myself at first too, so I was part of the blame game.)
Sure, there were issues and there were huge logistical gaps between scenes. Folks decided they had enough time to dwell on and be offended by the twins. I get it. But Michael Bay achieved something else with Transformers 2… he made a fascinatingly funny-ass movie that had a huge amount of robot action that, once you get past the literary stumblings of the film, you just might find pretty damn funny, and that’s that.
Mid last year HBO started playing Transformers 2 and then it went to their On Demand section. When I was in the mood to watch TV, but nothing was on, I kept tuning in this movie. If for anything, a sound gap to have on in the background. That’s when the brainwashing started and I started noticing things, like how if you quit bitching about the gaps and craps, it’s a fun movie. Period. Seriously, when the Decepticon super-model attacks Sam, Shia LaBeouf lets out probably one of the best on-film girlie screams I’ve ever seen/heard, from any gender.
The other day I was watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for the umpteenth time on HBO On Demand. In one scene, Josh Duhamel receives a set of coordinates to take the body of Optimus Prime. But the coordinates, in Lat & Lon, only had two decimals after the primary number. But did you know that a Latitude and Longitude coordinate is actually a pretty big dimension?
Lats and Lons make up a grid on the planet and are used to identify where one is. But you knew that. (A side note if detail: The Dimensions of a Lat & Lon grid square are different at different locations, depending how far away from the equator you are. It’s a curvature of the Earth thing.)
But generally speaking, for this example at the 37th degree Latitude, the length of a Latitude is 364,605 feet and the length of a Longitude is 258,683 feet. With a mile being 5,280 feet long, that means that a degree of latitude is 69 miles long and a degree of Longitude is 55 miles long.
Here we are, calling is as we see it… again! On Oct 18th, news of the hypothesized plot for the Michael Bay directed Transformers 3 movie, called Transformers: The Dark of the Moon was supposedly discovered by the website TFW2005 when they unveiled a description of a book from Reader’s Digest on Amazon. Again, this site hit the target and passed the word to all. The book is Transformers 3 Push-Pops Board Book and the product description in the editorial review section spells out an outline. It seems a bit weak only in as much as it only seems to reference everything we could have already pull together from every set picture, toy, cast announcement and hinted at outline of Transformers 3. It actually just feels like a generic and predictable outline of what’s to come and we could have all predicted the same at this point in time. (Note: I’m am in no way knocking the gang at TFW2005. They did an awesome job catching this when they did!)
Keep in mind, no one has officially released anything from DreamWorks as to the title and plot. Everything, including the title are all highly educated guesses. (The title was also derived by TFW2005).
Here’s the description of the book from Amazon, as TFW2005 has pointed out. (I keep pointing it out because some sites are forgetting to credit them for the find):
OK, sure, technically there it may be that SPOILERS are possibly distributed here!
Transformers 3 A Covered Optimus Prime and New Ratchet
On the Chicago set of Michael Bay‘sTransformers 3, this is a great little behind the scenes video, sans, the Transformers.
Transformers 3 will be starring Shia LeBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Josh Duhamel, Hugo Weaving [Megatron voice], Patrick Dempsey, John Malkovich, John Turturro, Frances McDormand, Alan Tudyk, Tyrese Gibson, Peter Cullen [Optimus Prime voice] and a slew more.
I’m watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for the umpteenth time because I have HBO and HBO on Demand allows you to select items over, and over, and over and… Well, you get it.
I love the little homage paid to Cloverfield and Bad Boys in the movie, (Posters in Sam’s short used dorm room.) and to Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks (Radio snippet used by BumbleBee communicating with Sam)
Some of the fighting scenes in slightly slowed motion coupled with the majestic music filling the room makes for some great moments in the movie.
Though I don’t know exactly how those… “twins” came into being in the Autobot universe. And agent Simmons.. come on, I can’t help that one!
“The synopsis of Thor is that the powerful but arrogant warrior Thor is cast out of Asgard and sent to live amongst humans on Earth, where he soon becomes one of their finest defenders.”
Thor is directed by Kenneth Branagh (Sleuth, The Magic Flute, Listening are his most recent directorial credits). I’d be hesitant about an actor taking on the director’s chair, but Jon Favreau has taught me to just sit tight and wait.
The screenplay writers are Ashley Miller and Don Payne. Ashley has some fantastic sci fi TV on her resume, with Fringe, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles & Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda.
Don Payne has worked on The Simpsons (TV) and 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. He better be good at what he does because the news is that he’s the screenplay writer for the upcoming LOBO movie, if that ever gets put in the can! (Now that… I am looking (hoping) forward to.)
Kevin Feige is the producer (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk & Hulk, Spider-Man franchise movies & his future production plate has Captain America, The Avengers & Runaways).
Paul Rubnell is editor for this project. His resume has Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Public Enemies, Hancock, Transformers and many more great hits on it.
Ah, but the cast of Thor is what will help convey script and direction onto to the editor’s chopping block or into the finished product!
The cast includes
Chris Hemsworth (Thor),
Natalie Portman (Jane Foster),
Kat Dennings (Darcy),
Anthony Hopkins (Odin),
Idris Elba (Heimdall),
Tom Hiddleston is Loki and of cource, the ever venerable
Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson from S.H.I.E.L.D..
That poor guy gets shot at by everything!
I guess after looking this over, I’m thinking that this movie shouldn’t suck!
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This is a 5-minute movie trailer that debuted at Comic Con 2010. It pretty much gives up everything there is to give up about the movie but then again, the story of Thor is not a new one as many have been reading the Marvel comic books with Thor for years.
“For a crazy, homeless person, he’s pretty cut.”
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*There’s a good chance this video will be pulled, so I apologize for the confusion… some sites have had it pulled, others have not. I have a consolation image or two at the end of this article.
I’m not a Thor fan, but I am a Marvel fan. It’s a pretty fun 5 minutes and I feel like I’ve seen the entire movie already but that’s O.K.! I’d see it to support Marvel Entertainment, plus I would love to see how they’ve interpreted Thor to the big screen, beyond what I’ve seen here.
Also keep in mind that as in every single other Marvel Entertainment production that is leading up to The Avengers movie, you know, just know there is going to be a scene after the credits of this movie that will tease us with another tiny little puzzle piece for The Avengers.
Thor is scheduled to be in theaters on May 6th, 2011.
Chris Hemsworth
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Agent Coulson is one brave mother ****er, that’s for sure…
THOR - The Destroyer
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It's about to hit the fan! The Destroyer lights up in Thor
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In the worst case scenario and I have to pull everything, below is my consolation – consolation prize! Marvel had the set for the throne in Asgard moved to Comic Con 2010. They were giving convention goers a chance to have their pics taken in it and I grabbed proof that Cobra Commander has high aspirations!
He’s looking pretty triumphant here!
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But things are definitely looking up now!
That’s all I have for now… in an upcoming future post, I have photographic evidence of how Cobra Commander was able to take the throne of Asgard!
The actual set for THOR - The Throne of Asgard at Comic Con 2010
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Double PS: If the trailer is gone, let me give a shout out to someone who’s transcribed the trailer from Comic Con, if you are so inclined: Teaser-Trailer.
I say boldly that the third installment of Transformers 3 has the green light, Michael Bay is on board to direct and the release date is July 1st, 2011. But then again, don’t we all, already know this? I’m feeling this information is confirmed because auditions will be taking place for the film prior to the slated May 2010 shoot date start.
Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox at Transformers 2 L.A. premiere
Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox return as Sam Witwicky and Mikaela Banes in “The Transformers 3“. Peter Cullen also returns as the voice of Optimus Prime.
With Avatar hitting the silver screen late in the year, the top-10 contenders at the movie box office had an easy run at it, sort of. My only complaint is that the original chart does not have Avatar in it… but I can fix that!
This list is from the U.S. Movie market only… which seems short sighted, considering how much a movie can make worldwide! For example: Avatar should be 6th on this list. Avatar made $232.1 million in the U.S. to date, and $637 million worldwide.
Oh, I lied about the top-10. I snagged the top-25 from the chart! Check out all the details after the break:
It’s late in the year and we still have a few movies that hit DVD late in the year, but with that in mind, here’s the top DVD sellers, according to The Numbers.
I just got done watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on ‘On Demand.’
For a few bucks via On Demand, for 2 hours and 25 minutes I had myself some decent television entertainment.
There was a bit of obvious flaunting of the eye candy named Megan Fox, but she actually sounded smart enough in this movie. I was surprised.
Neither am I a Shia LeBeouf fan. I don’t find myself drawn to any project he does, but he did pull off his role smartly enough for me.
Despite seeming like too long of a movie, the entirety of the movie was needed to tell this story of the Decepticons returning , humanity, well, the government finding issues with their aliean allies and the Autobots again, fighting for humanity and Earth.
