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There has been a lot of talks of reboots by fans, but the truth is Paramount can never commit to that. While the prequel movies like Bumblebee and the upcoming Rise of the Beasts won't directly reference the later (chronologically wise) films aside from Bumblebee's radio voice, face and alt mode choice, they are still part of this broader live action franchise, which has its die hard fans. Steve Caple Jr., the film's director, is very aware of this but and as a G1 fan he will be making this new movie his own thing while still being within the very loose and often contradictory chronology that fans call the Bayverse. The interview below from comicbook.com gives you a sense of how he will be meshing his movie within all this. It talks mainly of Optimus Prime's character and it is our best look yet at how Paramount is juggling this whole franchise and bringing in more classic G1 elements without committing to a full on reboot.
"The main hero is Optimus, as we all know and love," Caple said. "We're bringing Prime back, paying direct homage to Generation One. I care so much about this character that I really wanted to dive into Transformers, and I saw a Bumblebee and I was like, okay, Bumblebee had his own movie, but I want to discover more about Optimus Prime, dig underneath the surface, get underneath the metal, if you would, and like explore who he is and his experience here on earth, you know?"
"I know everyone has been asking like crazy, are we going, G1, are we going to G1?" Caple continued. "The answer is, yes, we are going to G1, the Prime."
The movie takes place about a decade before Michael Bay's Transformers -- and Caple plans to use that as an opportunity to explore a kind of "Year One" approach to Optimus Prime, and give fans a sense of how he became a great leader.
"It's 1994, and in a way, both the animated series and the Bay films treat Optimus the same in the sense of who he is as a leader, what is his drive?" Caple said. "All those things. What we've done is we're bringing it back to where you see how he becomes, what you're familiar with. And that's big new news."
And, yes, it isn't just a question of him spending 10 years on Earth. There's more to it than that, and fans will get to see what his "emotional" tie is to the planet, according to the director.
"When you say got to where he is, you mean 'we need to protect these earthlings and this biological planet,'" Caple explained. "The way to look at it is he's new to earth and he doesn't have a connection to earth the way we met him in the Bay films and the way we met him in the animated series where he's already a protector of Earth. And so in this film, it's forming, why does he have a link to humanity? And why does he have a link to earth? And that's emotional...At the beginning of Bumblebee, we showed, he escaped from Cybertron his home planet. And so in a sense, he's he literally is like an ex-pat here, right? He's landed. He's, he's an alien and he's never been here before. And so it allows us to get underneath say the stoicism of what we're traditionally presented in an Optimus."
Inverse had an interesting interview with Adam Wingard, director of Godzilla Vs Kong. In it, the focus is on Mecha Godzilla, as it is the only new Monsterverse design that debuted in the film. A big part of the article is Wingard recalling watching Transformers Dark of the Moon, which serves as an inspiration to him for what not to do. It is in this excerpt below:
Wingard says that when it came to Mechagodzilla, he was more focused on avoiding the mistakes of previous films than on copying some other classic sci-fi robot. The director is talking about one terrible movie in particular: Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
“I remember watching the third Transformers movie in the theater,” Wingard recalls. “It was one of those things where I was with a date, and we got there late, and the only seats that were available were literally in the front row. And so I'm sitting there watching Transformers 3 in the front row, and I couldn't tell what the hell was going on.”
“The Transformers, they just looked like metal. They looked like a plane crash. So I thought, that's the thing I wanted to avoid. They were too complex. There are too many moving parts, and I couldn't latch on to anything. Nothing felt iconic with that Transformers design.”
“The Transformers animated movie from the '80s with Orson Welles was one of the best movie experiences for me as a kid growing up,” Wingard says. “Period.”
Along with the leader of the dinobots, Gregg also gave Skyfire a voice and did vocal performances in a whole host of other cartoon shows including Argh! Real Monsters and the cartoon adaption of Men in Black, as well as Mysterio in the seminal 90s Spiderman cartoon.
We have embedded the interviews below for your convenience:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
What do you think of this interview? Whats your favourite Gregg performance?
Shout out in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!
Greetings Seibertronians! Fellow Seibertron user, futurevoiceactor, has dropped us a line to tell us about a special video he's uploaded to YouTube. In this video,he interviews Michael Bell, who Transformers fans will remember as the voices of Prowl and Sideswipe (and more!) in the original G1 Transformers cartoon! Outside of Transformers he's appeared in many other cartoons and video games (such as appearing as Raziel in the Legacy of Kain series).
The interviewer has already conducted interviews with the voice of Grimlock and Skyfire (from the G1 cartoon) and the colourist from IDW'S Regen One, John Paul Bove. Check out their YouTube Channel here
We have embedded the interviews below for your convenience:
Greetings Seibertronians! Over on My Little Pony fansite Equestria Daily, an interview has been posted with Megan Brown, editor of IDW's second My Little Pony/ Transformers crossover comic!
In the interview, Megan touches upon several stories that you'll see in the upcoming miniseries along with the Pony/ Transformer team ups.
Not content with having the exclusive interview, Equestria Daily also got to be the first to show off the cover to the third issue where Soundwave has to team up with DJ Pon-3! We have mirrored the image below for your convenience.
Did you read the first miniseries? Are you looking forward to this one? What other crossovers would you like to see in the comics?
Shout out in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!
We at Seibertron always aim to bring you the latest and most relevant news on all things Transformers. Occasionally, we do get opportunities to bring you content that's not exclusive to Seibertron, but is very newsworthy, and in this case, we feel is important for all Transformers fans to know. Kevin Lukis, the owner of fellow fan site Unicron.com, was granted an exclusive interview with Hasbro's Ben Montano, who's the Senior Director of Global Brand Marketing. Many thanks to Kevin for bringing this to our attention.
In this interview, Lukis and Montano discuss the biggest (and most expensive) Transformer ever made, the Chaos-Bringer himself, Unicron! They cover all things Unicron, including:
Why the changes to the color of the planet mode's maw was made.
Though he's the biggest Transformer ever made, he was, at one point, going to be even bigger.
He'd actually been planned for the Generations Selects line, which is reflected in his packaging.
When exactly he'll start shipping to U.S. backers.
Issues with distribution outside the U.S.
The unlikely chance of Unicron ever being reissued.
There are many other topics covered in the interview, which you can watch below.
So are you one of the lucky backers that will be getting your figure in the next few weeks? Just curious about what a senior Hasbro figure has to say about him? What did you think of the interview? Let us know below, and sound off in the Energon Pub forums!
(We would again like to thank Kevin Lukis of Unicron.com for the content).
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