The Transformers 2 official HD online release was meant to occur at 12:00pm PST today, it looks like this time has slightly slipped to 4:30pm PST — maybe to coincide with that Entertainment Tonight feature. ET have also provided a video interview with Shia, Michael Bay and Tyrese at the first showing of the new trailer. Videos included after the break
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Interviews
Online trailer launch delayed April 30th, 2009
New Official Megan Fox Image from ROTF April 30th, 2009
Yahoo have posted a new official image of Mikaela (Megan Fox) from Transformers Revenge of the Fallen:
Megan Fox has also been speaking to USA Weekend:
Before landing high-profile movies and magazine covers, you were [a] TV sitcom sidekick. Did you ever doubt you’d wind up where you are now?
Megan: …I started acting as a way to make money and avoid college. I sort of fell into it having no idea what I was doing … in “Transformers” as well.Is it true that you didn’t know you were the female lead in “Transformers” until the end of filming?
Megan: Yes. Everything was on lockdown. The script wasn’t released to anyone. The director, Michael Bay, was the only one who’d seen it.Megan, you and “Transformers” co-star Shia LaBeouf are good friends. Were your make-out scenes uncomfortable?
Megan: It’s always weird. That’s not something that’s ever romantic or sexy. Doing an on-set kiss is just strange, and knowing Shia so well makes it even more strange.OK, but the ladies want to know: How is he?
Megan: [Laughs.] Very good.In “Revenge,” you flee evil Decepticons for just about the entire movie. At least your male co-stars hauled butt in comfy sneakers — you were in heels!
Megan: Stilettos — and for the last part of the film, motorcycle boots. I had major shinsplints and threw out my back a couple times. Beyond that, Michael likes everyone freakishly tan, so we were painted maroon, like in the old Westerns when they hired Caucasians to play Native Americans. I had on fake eyelashes, running through the desert with sand stuck in them, and I’m sweating off all the makeup. It looked like we were making a tragedy.For many young actors, Megan, being in “Revenge” would be like the pinnacle of their career. But you’ve hinted that, in the end, movies about shape-shifting robots are nothing to write home about. How do you define success?
Megan: I’d like to develop my skills to where I can be recognized as a good actress. That’s my end goal. It has nothing to do with the box office. It’s about peer recognition and critical acclaim, even on a small level. I mean, I’m not trying to take Cate Blanchett down. I just want to improve.
Michael Bay talks to TV Guide April 26th, 2009
The feature, clearly strapped for footage as it shows the same scenes twice in under thirty seconds (and up to three times in two minutes), gives an overview of the sequel whilst giving Bay some time to explain how the robots have evolved. He also throws a dig at Cameron’s Avatar, suggesting that 3D is a gimmick.
Isabel Lucas and Ramon Rodriguez talk ROTF April 21st, 2009
MTV are really lapping up the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen buzz, giving us a lot of great interview snippets and movie clues. This time around it’s the turn of Isabel Lucas and Ramon Rodriguez.
- Ramon Rodriguez plays “Leo Spitz”, Sam’s roommate and owner of a paranoid conspiracies website about aliens and robots:
“I end up getting sucked into [Sam’s] crazy world with real robots and finding out he’s involved in the real thing,” Rodriguez said. “My complete world is flipped.”
- Isabel Lucas plays “Alice”,
“The character of Alice is more the seductress,” Lucas said. “She’s got mysterious intentions that we don’t really know about.”
As for Bay’s filming techniques:
Bay brought a couple of industrial-size fans to the Egyptian desert that blew 100-mile-per-hour, sand-filled winds at Rodriguez’s face. He ended up dislocating his shoulder and needed to have his eyes flushed out for 45 minutes. Another time he had to sit perfectly still as a huge metal spike pierced the roof of his car, perilously close to his head. In those moments, he was not so much acting as reacting to a very real sense of fear.
Could that 100 MPH fan perhaps be simulating Devastator’s massive vortex? We’ve seen him being pulled about before:
Michael Bay discusses his favorite robots April 16th, 2009
MTV have released the next part of their ongoing Michael bay interview, this one sees the Transformers director talking about his favorite robots, calling The Fallen an ultimate bad boy and claiming that the Devastator special effects are ten-fold more complicated than anything Lucas’ company has ever done. I’m still not sold on the Skids/Mudflaps twins.
“The Fallen is the ultimate bad boy,” Bay explained of the mysterious evildoer glimpsed briefly in the trailer for the June 24 film, whose vengeful mission gives the film’s title its double meaning. “He goes way back in the Transformer world. He’s one of the first Transformers.”
“The twins are quite fun,” Bay said of the comedy-relief duo, remembering his inspiration for including them. “I just kept thinking, ‘What if we have two dumb Transformers that are young and dumb?’ … They are just irreverent, dumb Transformers.”
“[Devastator is] the most complicated model that George Lucas’ company has done in 30 years,” Bay marveled. “In all the 30 years of [Industrial Light and Magic] making movies, it’s the most complicated digital model — and it’s tenfold in terms of the most complicated. It’s taken a long time to do.
“There’s a lot of great new characters in this movie — some funny ones, some devious ones, there are some little teeny ones that are a little irreverent,” Bay said of a robot group that includes such newbies as the four-legged Ravage, sleek Sideswipe and others. “You know what is better in this movie? The acting of the robots. It’s just evolved from the last one, and in terms of the animation we are able to put these robots’ [emotions] in.”
Such acting innovations have also helped a big breakout robot from the original “Transformers” film, who Bay insisted remains his favorite Transformer of the group. “Bumblebee is great in this movie,” he promised.
Orci and Kurtzman video interview April 9th, 2009
The Hollywood reporter have posted a video interview with Transformers 2 writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. Within they discuss their aims for the project and their decision to return.
Michael Bay reveals more — No car chases, Devastator in IMAX April 7th, 2009
Speaking with MTV once again, Michael Bay has revealed further Transformers 2 details — this time focusing on the action scenes,
“There’s no car chase in this movie, […] There’s a lot of different types of action. In some movies, it’s the same action throughout the entire movie. There’s a lot of different types of action in this one, and that makes it interesting.”
He went on to confirm that we would see Devastator in full IMAX glory before claiming:
“[Several scenes] are going to be on IMAX, which is awesome. […] Some of our main scenes were shot with IMAX cameras, so the screen will pop wide [if you see the film in an IMAX theater]. It’s the first movie to do serious digital effects in IMAX quality.”
The opening shot of the movie, which should also be in IMAX, will feature Megan Fox and shall beat that ‘flirtatious hood opening scene’ from the first movie:
“It’s better. […] [While filming] I was at a gas station buying ice cream bars, and these 15-year-old boys were looking at me. They were like, ‘You’re that dude that directed “Transformers”!’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah. Do you want to see “Transformers 2″? They were like, ‘Yeah!’ ” “I said, ‘Why do you want to see it?’ And together, in unison, they said, ‘The hot chick!’ […] It will be a good shot for them.”
Orci and Kurtzman discuss Transformers 2 March 31st, 2009
Transformers and ROTF writers Orci and Kurtzman have spoken with Scifi Wire about their work on Transformers 2. I have taken the liberty of summarizing the interview with some bullet points below:
- Both Sam and Optimus Prime are “tested in a very fundamental way”.
– The theme is based on Sam leaving home two years later and his new responsibilities.
– In searching for villains they went back to the source material; comics and cartoons — “and just started looking for kind of the most elemental bad guy that kind of jumped off the material, and we found one in the Fallen.“
– Some characters were chosen by Hasbro and Bay during writer’s strikes as discussion between the film makers and the film writers was prohibited. Others were taken from a brief 20 page treatment. This was necessary to get the designs rolling.
– Orci says “Jolt” (as seen on the toy) should be named “Volt”.
– Jetfire was in the treatment, whilst the goofy sure to be annoying Mudflap (Chevy Trax) was added later.
– “You’re not going to get to know them all”, with respect to piling new characters into the second movie.
– Some discussion about Nimoy and Frank Welker voicing characters.
Read the full interview at Scifi Wire