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From that first audition that we did he made me feel so comfortable. […] Usually, at auditions, there’s something awkward about it, or you wish you did something differently. Just from that day and every day on set, he really not only did a great job of making us all feel comfortable, but also communicating with incredible efficiency. Like I could really understand what he was going for. He had a clear vision in mind. He just had that comfortability to know what’s going on and know that there’s this very good communication going on which made for a really nice time on set. He’s great, he’really great.
Originally actually we deleted the scene where, in the end, I kind of disown that group of girls. When I’m like “You know what? I’ve seen the true side of you girls. Not cool.” But, yeah, that still is played upon, even though that scene didn’t make it into the final cut. That was definitely the attitude that they were going for. I associate with this group of people that maybe doesn’t jive with everything that I am about. Which I think is just like your classic kind of high school thing. We all kind of go through that where maybe people aren’t as nice as we want them to be in high school to others. But he’s a redeemable character. He sees through that. He’s not bullied like the other girls.
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We had this scene early on in the script. It was a “Sorcerer's Apprentice”-type moment where Bumblebee transfers his energon on to some of these appliances is in the house. We boarded it out and it was a lot of fun and but we never got it to work as a finished thing. It's one of those things where you share a work-in-progress with the world and you don't really want them to see it because I'm not done. But we did a fair amount of work on that sequence and in the end for a variety of reasons, for both tone and for pacing. While on its own, it was going to be a ton of fun, it just didn't propel the movie forward. It stopped the movie in his tracks for essentially this fun little moment and really wasn’t about our characters or their or their experiences, their growth or their relationship really.
Continuity is very important to me, as is being consistent. And so I did take a good hard look at the films that had been done in the past. And as we were thinking about this movie, I still wanted to move to be self-contained. I didn't presuppose any familiarity with the films or the franchise. I wanted someone who wouldn’t know anything about the Transformers to be able to sit in the theater to watch this movie and have a good time and enjoy the movie, not knowing anything about the transformers. But that said, it was important to me that if we were living within this universe and this mythology that it be consistent. At some point we realized that we were essentially boxing ourselves into a corner -- that we were, we were making choices that weren't really in the best interest of the film if we were trying to kind of sit within the overall mythology of the franchise.
Once I talked through some of these things with the producers and with the folks at Paramount, at some point we made the decision that this was the story that we're telling and we have to talk the best where we can. And if that means that we essentially are restarting the franchise and that means we’re rebooting these characters and they were taking aspects of the franchise and putting a different prism on it, then that's what we had to do. And ultimately it was a liberating choice because then we weren’t cornered into these decisions based on what had come before. We could tell our own story. And that that was the aspect of that.
[laughs] Well, we wanted to showcase how much of a threat that our baddies and that if Charlie or Bumblebee some face-to -ace with these antagonists, they are in very big trouble. We wanted to show right away that these characters are a real threat. However in keeping with like you said, some kind of Joe Dante, family, Amblin-y vibe, you try not to be grotesque. We still wanted this to be a family movie. And so even though what the Decepticons do to people is horrific, there's still a comedic element to it. It’s still kind of fun, even though it's gross and awful. You can watch it and give you a little bit of a smile on the corner of your mouth. But that was the idea -- it wasn't horrific and grotesque, that that it was communicated what we want to but, in a family-friendly way. I will say that when we shot that stuff practically, people would get it all over their shoes. It was disgusting.
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“[The movie] had a beginning, it had a middle and an end and it had proper resolution. And so as I was charting the relationship between these two character there was no other way for it to end. It had to end with them parting.
It’s about one of those relationships, one of those life changing relationships that where someone comes into your orbit and fundamentally changes your trajectory moving forward. And it was, he has his mission to do and he has to go do it and she has her life and she has to live and she has to go live it. And they change each others lives, but then they had to part and that was the story that I was telling.
And so even though I love seeing them together, and I was sad when they had to part as well. It was critical for what this movie was.”
“I’m sure a creative mind could come up with a way to bring them back together, but it was always incredibly important to me that this film, even though it sits within a larger context of mythology and comics and cartoons and films, that this film be self contained that it lives on its own.”
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For the next Transformers are you looking for new directors or hoping you can still make Michael Bay an offer?
I think Bay has made it really clear that he loved what he did and he’s not doing anymore. So I think the answer is we’re writing a script. At that point, once we get script we have a strong belief in, then we’ll begin to debate that. Michael’s made it really clear that he didn’t want to do it. I don’t blame him. He spent a hell of a lot, a decade of his life, shooting them.
Are you developing a script that picks up where The Last Knight left off?
No.
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Go with Jon Bailey (voices of Shockwave & Soundwave) to Paramount Studios to interview Bumblebee writer Christina Hodson, create the sounds of Bumblenee with foley artists Dawn Lunsford and Alicia Stevenson & go under the hood of the actual VW Bumblebee car with mechanic Sarah Lyon! BUMBLEBEE IS OUT NOW ON DIGITAL, DVD, BLU-RAY & 4K ULTRA HD!
Special thanks to Paramount & Seibertron.com!
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ased in San Francisco, Super7 started in 2001 with a book about Japanese Kaiju toys, which turned into Super7 magazine, focused on Japanese kaiju and toy culture, and art and design. In addition, was the seed that would sprout into a company that made actual toys: a printed coupon for an exclusive repaint of a toy, based on color schemes they thought would look more outrageous than the Japanese variants of the time. "The Japanese sensibility on repaints is always very referential," founder Brian Flynn explained to Popular Mechanics in an interview. "The way we approached our recolors was more as what would be cool. 'Let’s make a Hedorah that is clear yellow and orange with red highlights and it’s in glitter. It’s the meltdown Hedorah!'"
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With the approval of Lucasfilm on their résumé, Flynn decided the next toy he’d re-create would be a lost opportunity from his childhood: the famed 1979 Kenner 3¾-inch Alien prototypes. He was able to track down who owned the prototypes—because a lot of the time they leave with company employees and are sold to collectors—obtain a license from Fox, and finally make the figures real. It was really a turning point for Super7, such that Flynn talks about the company's success in terms of "before Alien" and "after Alien."
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Another exciting addition to the catalog are the first screen-accurate Transformers from the original Generation One cartoons—because they don't transform. For companies like Hasbro, the transformation is the whole point of the line, but that comes at the cost of accuracy. "By the nature of that toy physically having to transform," Flynn says, "you’re only going to get 85 to 90 percent screen accurate because you have to put the mechanisms in.” Super7's Transformers Super Cyborg Deluxe Action Figures, each 11 inches tall and fully articulated, have transparent removable chest panels to show off their robotic guts inside in lieu of transforming super powers.
Aside from producing fan favorites, Flynn wants to make all the weird secondary characters, the ones major companies would never be able to make and sell to retailers like Target and Walmart. “I want to make that guy in the background of the third episode from the second season that’s there for five minutes,” he said.
“I hope it’s obvious to everybody else that we’re having as much fun as possible with this, Flynn says. "It's not lost on us that we collectors all sit at home and go 'Wouldn’t it be cool if they did this!?' but there’s only a couple companies that can actually get things made.” After 18 years of business and success with cherished toy lines, Super7 is uniquely positioned to take on those sorts of what-ifs, and fortunately for us all, that's just what they intend to do.
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We’re back with Part 2 of our Hasbro Pulse: Behind the Design with John W. from the Transformers design team. Read on for more designer details on the recently revealed War for Cybertron: Siege – Omega Supreme figure.
Hasbro Pulse:
Between the G1 show, comic books, previous Omega Supreme figures—how did you decide on the design for this figure?
John:
We had a couple of big meetings between Takara Tomy and Hasbro. I still recall a moment when I think Hasui-san came here to the United States and he brought a cut-out standee of the character based on the G1 cartoon style. Fans of the cartoon know that it’s simplistic, with a lot of smooth surfaces, and the proportions are slightly different. They’re subtle, but noticeable differences.
When we looked at that collectively as a team, our pushback was to have more of that concept art feel to it, with a lot more surface details to make it feel sophisticated and detailed, because the rest of the Siege line is covered with lots of little details that aren’t really evident in the G1 cartoon series. Hasui took that information back to Japan and worked with the designer, Kunihiro-san, who is a big fan of putting lots of detail into things – he really ran with this direction. He’s a scale modeler and is one of the original Transformers designers who worked on Star Saber, and some of the legendary characters from the late 80s and early 90s. We blended the world of G1 and the more concept art feel and brought to life this new style that is detailed and has lots of panels and extra pieces that weren’t there before.
One of the biggest challenges from an aesthetic standpoint is how do you not disappoint the G1 fans, but also continue to push the brand forward and keep it in line with the gritty, war-torn story that we’re telling with War for Cybertron: Siege. I’m really happy with the balance that we struck between the two – it hopefully satisfies the G1 fans, but it also pushes us into a cool new place for fans that are starting to collect this new Cybertron universe.
Hasbro Pulse:
Once you’ve decided, “OK, we’re doing a massive two-foot Omega Supreme figure”, what comes next? What’s the process like? How do we get from an idea to final product?
John:
We start with determining scale. How big is it, how big can we afford to do for the price point and still provide a good value to the consumer? What is the list of priority things we want to do? And then Takara Tomy comes back and they provide an early idea of their vision and how it’s going to convert.
Kunihiro would put together loose sketches on graph paper, figuring out all the major geometry of the figure. They come back to us with a proposal of the basic forms and we will provide extra reference on detail. Sometimes we’ll work with commissioned artists from around the world to bring a level of finish to it. Takara will take that and work with their model makers, taking some of the detail illustrations and build it into the 3-D model.
The 3-D model then allows them to test the conversions and identify any part interference. We go back-and-forth on a number of parts, details, and sketch in different areas -- “change this,” “make this piece bigger,” “make this piece smaller.” And then once we’re all in agreement, a gray model is created – this is the exciting part! Takara Tomy will create this literal, gray, one-of-a-kind prototype Transformer and they’ll send us a video – it’s always on this black, rotating platter – and they’ll slowly rotate the figure so we can get a sense of how big it is. With Omega Supreme…he was so big that his feet were hanging off the platter. As it rotates around, they stop the video and show how he converts.
It isn’t until this point that you really get a sense of the mass— you knew how tall he was going to be from the blueprints we had tacked around the office, and an impression of how big all the different elements are. It’s not until you see the designer converting it from robot to space station that you really get the “Wow, that rocket is huge, and that tank is a lot bigger than I thought it would be” feeling and it gives us a chance to see if there’s anything else we want to put into it. From there, they take that model and they create what’s called a final production model, a PT. They’ll take this model, refine it and make sure there’s no interference with the parts and pieces, and will also make sure it meets all the safety requirements
From that point, Takara Tomy puts it into production with the factory and we’ll start to see prototypes coming in. Simultaneously, we work here in our Rhode Island office to create what’s called a deco sheet where we spec out the molded colors, determine how many paint operations there are, and then try to bring that to life.
I work with a model artist here to create a painted prototype. This is the stage when the stars start to align. We’ll send that same deco spec to the factory; the factory will start to generate painted samples and then we’ll start to test out the joints and any QA concerns. We work closely with engineering at this point, to make sure all of the pieces are working properly.
After all this, we then get to reveal the figure to the fan at big events like the Entertainment Brand Preview event this past weekend in New York, and we have a chance to meet with fans and hear what they have to say. And then the whole process begins all over again with a new Titan character!
Hasbro Pulse:
That sounds like a lot of work.
John:
It IS a lot of work! Honestly, it takes months and months to do it, but it’s an incredible job and it’s great to be able to take something you’re passionate about and make toys for fans and work with awesome writers, creatives, engineering teams and stuff. We’re all fans and and we dig it. It’s a great job to do, it’s a ton of work, but it’s incredibly satisfying when a fan comes up to you, and you talk to them for an hour at a convention about how this toy really captures something for them – it is really something special. You come to realize that you’re doing more than just designing toys; you’re creating memories and you’re creating moments for people that they can spend with their kids, or they can spend bringing to life a battle on their shelf. It’s more than just a toy, it’s something so much more. I think that’s what I like so much about it.
This has been Hasbro Pulse: Behind the Design with John W. Hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the War for Cybertron: Siege Omega Supreme figure.
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