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Greetings Seibertronians! Hasbro's China offices have been up to their fun and games again, producing a new stop motion video featuring Transformers toys from the Studio Series 86 and Transformers Kingdom lines! In the video, that Hasbro China put up on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, Hot Rod takes on Cyclonus in a battle of talents, with Arcee managing the proceedings.
Not that things are ever that straightforward...
Click the link or watch the YouTube mirror, put up by YouTube user, Cybertron21:
What do you think of this? Is this more like the content you would like to see Hasbro producing?
Shout out in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!
Greetings Seibertronians! Thanks to TFW2005 user, Megatron Unicronus, we now know that the recently revealed listing for a power charge Bumblebee in the Target Exclusive Buzzworthy Bumblebee line, was indeed just a re-release of the Power Charge Bumblebee from the 2018 Bumblebee Movie toyline. This toys' central gimmick was the sphere in the chest of his robot mode that you could spin to activate lights and sounds. There appears to be no change from its first release.
Will you be tempted to pick one of these up? Did you get one on its first visit to store shelves three years ago?
Shout out in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews.
Hey, fellow Transformers fans! Today we bring you casting news of the next live-action movie in the franchise, which is due out in just over a year. Deadline, a movie news website, is reporting that actress Dominique Fishback is in final negotiations to star next to Anthony Ramos in the next Transformers movie.
Ms. Fishback has been in a number of television shows and movies, the most recent of which is Judas and the Black Messiah, for which she was nominated for a BAFTA (British Oscar equivalent) for Best Supporting Actress. This will not be the first pairing for Ms. Fishback and Mr. Ramos, however- the two have apparently known each other for years, having worked on a play in college together.
So have you seen Dominique Fishback on the big or small screen(s)? Excited about seeing the next movie come together? Let us know what you think below, and stay tuned to Seibertron for the latest Transformers news!
With there being buzz again for a new Transformers film, I thought of starting this ranking which will update through the years as more movies get added. This ranking consists of theatrically released Transformers films. Be sure to let us know your ranking too.
Ranking of the Transformers Films with Theatrical Releases
7. Transformers The last Knight
With the previous film steering things in the right direction by finally having the robots actually feel like characters and not just background noise, I was legitimately excited for this film. Megatron was coming back as well with the best design we had seen for him so far in the series and it looked like Optimus could finally be the prominent character in the film, especially based on the marketing. I mean, you look at this and Optimus is the last knight, right... RIGHT?!?!?!?!
Wrong!
The last knight is Mark Wahlberg. You wondering why? Well it's because he doesn't have sex a lot. They spend some minutes discussing that very thing. Oh and Optimus, the guy on the poster? Not in the film much. The last film ended with him setting off on an awesome revenge mission in space and this one opens with the film showing us that he wasn't really made for deep space flight. This film is a dud with the most uneven tone of the entire series. Like having some really raw and visceral medieval action intercut with Stanley Tucci being a clown as a drunk Merlin. Tone deaf, truly tone deaf. There's just so much wasted potential here. Evil Optimus? Lasts for just six minutes. Cool new Megatron? Not there much, plays second fiddle to Quintessa. Barricade returns? Taken out without Bee even needing to transform. Unicron is planet earth? Not gonna focus on that too much. Cog is called a headmaster? He never transforms into anything and is just a butler robot. The submarine is a Transformer? Never transforms. Bee can finally talk again? He does, after we were told that he still can't, and after his two second speech he goes back to the radio voice.
This doesn't feel like a Transformers movie in the least. It looks like one of the writers in the writer's room had an Arthurian legend descendants script in the works and the rest of the writers just added Transformers to it. This film is just a junk fest of scenes and random ideas put together, avoid it "no matter the cost".
6. Transformers Dark of the Moon
My issue with this film is that it is so damn boring. Like mind numbingly so. The Transformers hero characters are relegated to the background here, even in the fight scenes and they seem to have no agency. The Wreckers are there for 2 minutes of screen time and mostly in the background of those 2 minutes. This is not a joke. The montage scene of Sam looking for a random job lasts longer (it lasts for 4 minutes). And I absolutely hate how they have to write ridiculous reasons for Optimus not to join a battle (and thus save some money on CGI), like getting tied up with ropes. It just makes this huge blockbuster feel so cheap. Speaking of Optimus, any hint of that noble warrior is gone here and he's just a murderer. I get that he is beyond pissed off in Age of Extinction, which gives a reason for his overly rash behaviour, but we don't have that here. Just a murder machine who executes his mentor by shooting him in the head point blank. That particular scene does not make him look heroic in the least. And once again, Megatron plays second fiddle to another villain. Also, the studio insisting on Leonard Nimoy to say his famous Spock line in the context of villainy made me want to hurl. Although the "homage" to the Columbia shuttle tragedy is probably worse.
5. Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
One thing that pisses me off to no end with these films is the total disregard for the robot characters. The live action films treat the robots as just random characters we don't need to know much about and the constructicons are a great example of this. We see them in the beginning, they aren't introduced nor so they talk among themselves to establish anything. And then later in the film, we see Devastator, who you'd think would be made up of those constructicons. But he isn't. Instead, he is made up of construction vehicles lying around a pyramid which suddenly merge together into devastator. And during that time, you have the constructicons from the beginning fighting the Autobots. It's like the writers and filmmakers are going out of their way to show how little any of this means to them. The writing is beyond poor in this film with one of the key plot points being that only a Prime can defeat the Fallen, the villain of this film which Megatron plays second fiddle to. And while Optimus does beat him after getting some parts from Jetfire, I don't see why it had to be a prime and not just any other bot who was jacked up on extra parts.
And I hate how terribly cheap the film looks with its obvious cost cutting methods. There's an important scene where Optimus is resurrected and it's entirely obscured by a tarp.
All that said, there are some good things in this film. For one, Megatron's looks are a step up here in robot mode. I like how the tank treads incorporate into his feet and the asymmetry of his arms adds a real creepy factor. This look is the one that has remained the most iconic for Megatron's Bayverse tenure even though he changed look in every film. Also, that forest battle scene is pretty incredible. Not just because it is well done, but it lasts long enough for it to become this small pocket in the history of Bay films where the robots are the main characters. Sure Sam runs around, but he serves his purpose as indicating to the audience just how different Autobot and Decepticon ideologies are. In that scene, Sam is there not as a main character but just as a means to share more info about the robots to the audience, no matter how basic that info is (Auobot good, Decepticon bad). It's an awesome 3 minute scene that you can watch again and again on youtube with no need for what comes before or after and none of the films previously mentioned have something this good.
4. Transformers Age of Extinction
This film gets kudos for actually trying to fix major issues from the previous films. For one, the bots actually feel like characters with their own personality traits. Optimus is a full fledged character here, well at least as much as any of the human characters. Sure, it's the murder machine version of the character, but at least you know where he's coming from. All the Autobots get several lines of dialogue. I remember Protoman (a reviewer on youtube and a friend) reviewing the Drift figure and saying that the character probably wouldn't have more than two lines of dialogue in the film and this film proved him (and many others) wrong. Were they good lines? I'm not even going there, I am just happy these characters have lines. And speaking of the Autobots, they are colour coded this time around to make the action scenes easier to follow. And there are some pretty kick ass action scenes, be it Hound and Bumblebee's last stand, Optimus Against Galvatron, Optimus against Lockdown, the dinobot charge, flying around Chicago, Bee vs Stinger atop the robotic Pterasaur, lots of fun stuff. Plus the villains are good here. The bounty hunter Lockdown is rather threatening and I really liked Kelsey Grammer as an 80s type villain that is just obviously evil. We even get scenes of just the Transformers heroes talking and figuring things out with no human in sight. Crazy, I know!
3. Transformers (2007)
In comparison to the rest, there isn't much to say here other than I think it was a good first outing for a franchise branching out into a new era. Sure, the humans take centre stage for most of the film but it serves as an introduction to the brand and the new mythos of this interpretation. It does an ok job at what it's trying to do even though Bay's live action style was never something I was overly fond of, especially the idea that really cool stuff will be relegated to the background and that the Transformers are secondary characters with action told from a ground witness point of view. It was fine for a first film and that point of view even works well in that military desert scene vs Scorponok but I feel what worked for one film did not work for the entire franchise. And the CGI still holds up, which is quite an achievement and it shows just how cutting edge the film was when it first came out.
2. Transformers The Movie
This film is really special and I haven't cracked the code as to why it works so well for so many of us. I just know for a fact that it is extremely captivating to kids (Or those who watched it when they were kids). The drawings are gorgeous and the animation is good. It holds up very well and you can definitely tell that this is a movie rather than another episode of the show to the point where going back to the show will feel like a downgrade after seeing it. It also feels truly epic. You feel the stakes. I feel it does waver off a bit after Galvatron's initial attack with the remaining autobots, where three parties are split off into new worlds, but everything comes back together for a grand finale. The part of the writing that I find rather impressive is everything to do with Galvatron. It's not easy to bring about the idea of a different character also being a new version of an old character, and to do that without that becoming the main plot you are telling. Here, I feel they do it effortlessly. I love how Galvatron retains the memory of his previous self and is proud of his achievements, yet you see that this is a new persona at the same time. Just wonderful stuff all around.
1. Bumblebee
This may not be a revolutionary movie for most, but to me it proves that the Transformers franchise can truly inhabit the world of classic live action films without any mockery. The film itself is excellent for what it is, an Amblin film for today's generation of kids. It goes for the 80s aesthetic all the way by not only making it the setting, and giving the robots the more classic look and feel of that era, but also in giving us a film that feels a product of that era of film making and storytelling, like ET.
I love the world building etched into the dialogue. Like how Bee's sentencing by Blitzwing shows Megatron's ideals of "Peace through Tyranny". That first segment with Bee coming to Earth is just so beautifully done. That was originally how the film began in the script, when there was no Cybertron scene and while I think that Cybertron scene is all kinds of fun, I am really impressed at what Bee's arrival on Earth accomplishes in terms of storytelling and aesthetics for this new breed of live action Transformers films. They show us how Bumblebee scans and transforms and how that changes his own aesthetic through an action scene. Right after that it shows us just how bad the odds are against the autobots with the battle against Blitzwing. We see the advantage a flier has over a bot that can only transform into a car and and there are some nice shots contrasting their size, mirroring the larger war at hand. I love how Bumblebee goes to destroy his flight mechanism to ground him first. Plus how that fight finishes shows how the Autobots had to get crafty to survive and continue fighting.
We get some more awesome fight choreography at the end against Dropkick and Shatter, and the filmmaker even throws in a few moments of showing how a Transformers fight differs from other robots fighting, with using their transformation abilities as they fight. Plus you've got a great soundtrack and good human characters, and a solid performance from John Cena (who has BY FAR the best line in the film). I am just very happy this movie came out by the time I had kids (a boy and girl) since it's a great way to share this brand I love so much with them within the modern slew of entertainment. It's the Transformers film I can truly recommend to anyone and everyone.
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.”
Greetings Seibertronians! Following on from the announcement that Angel Manuel Soto was helming a brand new Transformers movie, unconnected to any of the other movies currently being worked on, he dropped in on the Molusco TV Podcast and while there, dropped some information about his upcoming project.
Thanks to the fine folk over at TFW2005, and in particular, the user Black Convoy, we have what he said translated, and he made some interesting comments about his movie:
Mr. Soto stated that the premises of his new Transformers movie will take place outside of United States. The story does not involve the military.
The plot is stated to be completely outside of the Bayverse.
Additionally, the director described the inception of the movie in question. He got the call from Paramount after the 2020 Sundance Film Festival where he showcased Charm City Kings. The Los Angeles production company expressed their interest to make a new and different Transformers project with him. Angel Manuel Soto personally pitched the idea to Paramount & Hasbro. The two companies liked the idea and gave a greenlight.
The Soto Transformers Project is still in an earlier stage than the upcoming DC Blue Beetle movie (also directed by Angel Manuel Soto).
The director is planning to humanize the Transformers characters on his movie (personality-wise and not design-wise). He want the robots to speak like us, in a natural way. That’s the way he remembers Transformers and the reason we felt identified with the original Transformers. He believes that when you humanize the characters, you get closer to them, love them. When there’s a human approach, you create a connection with them. If not, they are just lifeless robots.
Angel Manuel Soto is surprised to see all the reaction of fans about him directing this movie. He doesn’t want to let anybody down. While he can’t speak much details, he says that the budget is over 50 milliion dollars and it’s a challenge to manage it. He really wants to bring as much of the movie as he can to Puerto Rico.
Elsewhere, Mr. Soto stated that he always wanted to make a movie on Transformers; which he enjoyed during his childhood. Growing up, his father struggled to provide for his family but bought him Transformers toys which he loved and cherished.
Are you intrigued about this movie, knowing these tidbits?
Shout out in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!
Greetings Seibertronians! Thanks to fellow Seibertron user, Rysquad, we've been pointed to a deadline article which reports that the Steven Caple Jr helmed Transformers movie (the follow up to Bumblebee), is in final negotiations to cast Hamilton star, Anthony Ramos as the lead. Anthony also starred in Bradley Coopers hit remake of a Star is Born.
The report also states that Anthony has been firmly in the sights for the role from the moment Caple joined the movie. If everything is finalised, it's expected that he will do co-star chemistry tests when more casting is confirmed.
This movie is expected to be the first of four scripts to be completed, with a date set for next year. It currently has the working title of Beast Alliance.
What do you think of this casting news? Excited to see what Anthony will bring to the table and how he'll interact with the Autobots?
Shout out in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!
Greetings Seibertronians! Site sponsor, Entertainment Earth let us know that ThreeZero, officially licensed manufacturer of Transformers high end non-transforming figures , have revealed one of their latest products to preorder:
The ancient Decepticon Seeker who chose to side with the Autobots and sacrifice his spark to Optimus Prime to aid in the defeat of The Fallen, Hasbro and threezero proudly present the long-awaited Jetfire from the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen film as the next figure in the Transformers DLX Collectible Figure Series! At 15-inches tall, the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen DLX Jetfire collectible figure features approximately 65 points of articulation, a die-cast metal frame, and LED illuminated eyes. LED Jet Thrusters also light up in Jetpower mode. The figure requires 6x "AG-13" batteries (not included).
Accessories include:
1x Landing Gear Cane
1x Cannon (For Jetpower Optimus Prime form)
1x Machine Gun (For Jetpower Optimus Prime form)
2x Pairs of interchangeable Hands (1x pair of relaxed and 1x pair for holding the Landing Gear Cane.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen DLX Jetfire is designed so that key parts can be detached and integrated as armor for the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen DLX Optimus Prime (sold separately) Together, the two figures form the impressive DLX Jetpower Optimus Prime.
That's not all though, thanks to twitter user, capcomkai, we have even more images of this figure, including one of the Jetpower Optimus Prime combination!
What do you think of this high end figure?
Shout out in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!
The next movie is going to start shooting soon so this will be one of many articles on what the next live action film will entail. The rumours below come to us from an insider in the graphics department, so it is based on concept art which, as we know, is not indicative of the finished product. It does make for fun rumours though. The main takeaway here is that, for the most part, the film acts as it's own thing and does not reference much in terms of past films in terms of plots and style. There will be of course some references, like the design of Bumblebee's head which has remained rather similar throughout all live action films. Of course, take all this with a grain of salt since it was posted on 4chan.
Ok, so let's get to it:
>So, I work at Paramount Pictures as a designer for posters and other memorabilia, I create posters for them and more stuff. >Anyway, I got into some cool info about the upcoming Transformers reboot and here it is:
>You may have heard that new leak about Beast Alliance, well, it's not a beast wars movie and it has nothing to do with beast wars. Beast Alliance is just a working title, lots of movies have weird titles like this that have nothing to do with the film, Star Wars had lots of them.
>It is a heist type film like Ant Man but with Transformers, Optimus Prime and crew are stealing an artifact, no idea what it is but energon is involved. Megatron and the decepticons are in, all in G1 designs.
>Set after Bumblebee 2018 film, it acknowledges it but not the rest of Bayformers.
>New human characters: black, white and latino leads eyed.
>Possibly a black girl and a white kid are eyed as leads.
>Steven Caple Jr. understands the IP from what I saw.
>Small cast of robots, a little bigger than 2007 film. Movie emphasises on love and heart like Bumblebee rather than lore.
>Now keep in mind, I know all this stuff from some small plot lines I got to read and concept art I saw but it seems this is the direction they are going. Very Indiana Jones/Ant Man heist adventure film than previous films. I also saw a new face for Bumblebee, no idea if they will use it or not, it gave Bumblebee a mouth but the head design was similar to the previous film (Bumblebee 2018 movie) one. Robots are also thicker in the concept art.
>It's Trans on top and Formers beneath like G1 and has THE too. I think a comparision on how the marketing will be like is Thor Ragnarok. The roster of robots as I'm aware of is the following:
>Optimus Prime
>Bumblebee
>Arcee
>Ratchet
>Ironhide
>Brawn
>Wheeljack
>Cheetor
>Megatron
>Starscream
>Soundwave
>Shockwave
>Coneheads and seekers
>There might be more, it seems Cheetor is part of the film as a guardian of the artifact. I did not see his design, only for Prime, Bumblebee, Starscream, Soundwave and Megatron.
>The designs are updated. They are still bulky and thicker. Very G1. Nothing like Bayverse, the Bumblebee I saw has a face with a mouth and it looks cute. Megatron looks very big, he is taller than Prime and has his fusion cannon. Starscream has a new head, very sleek and G1 and humanoid. Soundwave has a body that makes him look like he transforms into some type of van, his head is more G1 now and updated. They are more detailed overall. Megatron also has a humanoid face with the bucket helmet thing. Apparently there will be some Cybertron scenes in the film, the planet will look the same as in Bumblebee. Optimus head is the same as in Bumblebee.
While there are currently 4 Transformers films currently in development, the next live action installment in the live action film franchise will be shooting in Montreal in two studios, MELS Studios stage 3 and MTL Grandé. This will take place for 11 weeks, from July to September, before continuing filming in Peru. The site this comes from, Journal de Montréal, also states the budget is estimated to be $200 Million. This is more in line with the films that preceded Bumblebee, which is what Lorenzo di Bonaventura also stated a while back, when commenting that the next film would be a return to the bigger Transformers films.
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