Non-Cameron 3-D isn't good enough

DECLARATION OF REJECTION FOR MAINSTREAM THREE-

DIMENSIONAL CINEMATIC PROJECTION AS A VIABLE 

ALTERNATIVE TO TWO-DIMENSIONAL IN ITS CURRENT FORM

In April 2009 I witnessed Monsters vs. Aliens, the first movie to be directly produced in a stereoscopic 3-D format instead of being converted into 3-D after completion. It was quite remarkable. I remember reaching out with my hands attempting to touch several “floating” objects – my senses being completely fooled by the technology.

Just before the dawn of a new decade I witnessed the first mainstream modern 3D blockbuster, Avatar which applied this new stereoscopic tech to live action. With one fell swoop James Cameron redefined 3-D as he pioneered the next evolution of computer generated imagery and melded it with the 3-D technology previously reserved for children's animated movies. The care and attention to each and every detail, creature, character and environment was abundantly clear.  Graphically, Avatar was a masterpiece. A triumph of three dimensional projection technology that pushed the boundaries of cinema as we know it.

In the months, nay - years that have followed, we have seen a multitude of examples of movies that have capitalised on this emerging technology. Among those; Resident Evil: Afterlife, Underworld: Awakening and Prometheus. All of these movies, good or bad have had some extremely impressive set-pieces which took advantage of the extra dimension. However when compared to Avatar, they all sadly lack the same level of three-dimensional detail. The main overriding problem is that that the common 3-D movie throws things out at you, enhances depth and makes obvious vain attempts to surround your perception. It was however only Avatar that truly immersed me in the movie and made me feel like I was practically there inside it.

While I reject the notion of post-processed 3-D movies [with the obvious exception of Star Wars] I felt it was my duty as a progressive patron of both technology and the arts to offer singular unswerving support to true-3-D. After recently evaluating the examples that Hollywood has offered to us since Avatar, culminating with the 'flat' 3-D of The Amazing Spider-Man, I must admit that not a single one has come anywhere near the magic that Cameron wove.

The fact that I would have no issue with sitting down and watching Transformers: Dark of the Moon or Tron: Legacy and the like on my 2-D TV but could never watch Avatar [itself a 5-Star movie] in 2-D speaks not about the quality of Avatar but the lack of necessity to need only to witness the 3-D of the other movies. I feel no great overriding need to see these movies again in 3-D but I could never watch Avatar in 2-D.

I must therefore publicly declare, my withdrawal of total support for three-dimensional cinematic presentations and reduce support to a provisional basis which covers only the following instances:
(A) Movies which must be seen but have no 2-D presentation such as Underworld:Awakening, (B) 3-D conversions of religious imagery [the Star Wars saga], (C) Avatar 2 and all subsequent creations of James Cameron, (D) any presentation for which like-minded individuals explicitly request that it be viewed in 3-D and (E) force mejure.

This declaration will remain in effect from the date below, until such time as Hollywood begins to adopt the standards and practices employed by James Cameron and create visual imagery at least to 75% of the standard that he set in 2009.

Signed: Colonel "Whopper" Creedon, Mahon Point Omniplex, July 7th 2012

Dark of the Moon is explosively bright!

Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the third and final part of Michael Bay's magnum opus - The Transformers trilogy - is upon us.

Bay promised to correct the "errors in judgement" he had with Revenge Of The Fallen in 2009, but not only had he to do that; he also had to end his tale with such a bang that it would resonate throughout the history of cinema for years to come. He was also faced with impossible mission of exciting the predominately male audience with a sexy female lead more delectable than Megan Fox.

Well 2 outta 3 ain't bad Michael.

The problems with Revenge were indeed corrected thankfully, basically by ignoring them. Gone was the idea of The Fallen, somehow superior to Megatron. Absent were Decepticon "hatchlings" and the Autobot "twins" perceived as racist by many, were nowhere to be seen. The over-long comedy sequences with the Witwicky family were reduced to a minimum for the third movie's pretty lengthy running time. So it's basically safe to say that Bay kept his word and stuck to the core ideas he began with in the original Transformers.

Did he manage to end his tale with a bang? Aye, he sure did. Dark of the Moon was most certainly the loudest, most explosion-ey movie Bay has ever done and took full advantage of being able to blow half of a $195m budget on pyrotechnics [reserving the other half for CGI]. The addition of the third dimension was a bold move for a man who admitted severe difficulty with the format in the way he films. Nevertheless, he produced stunning three dimensional imagery that complimented what would be the greatest on screen battles of the series.

While Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving and others all returned to portray the characters they had in the previous two movies, Megan Fox's unfortunate reference to Bay as "Hitler" during an interview angered producer Steven Spielberg who had Bay remove her from the project. Bay replaced Fox with British underwear model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley [I'm sorry but am I the only person who thinks she got punched in the upper lip by someone?] in the part of Sam's new girlfriend Carly [a nod to Carly Witwicky, Spike's wife in the G1 series]. It is being said by all who have witnessed her performance that Huntington-Whiteley's acting talents make Megan Fox seem like Katharine Hepburn by comparison. It would have been alright for her to just sit there and pout or run and scream as necessary for the scene but they made the mistake of giving her lines of dialog, and also the most unconvincing speech I've heard in an age. Not since Kate Bosworth's abysmal performance in Superman Returns have I actually been so annoyed at the emptiness of a performance by a leading lady.

Aside from that, Ehren Kruger's screenplay brought a cohesiveness to the action that seemed to escape Orci and Kurtzman in the previous installments. Dark of the Moon seems to posess a slightly more engaging plot, what with the idea of the space race of the 1960's being a response to The Ark's crash and the purpose of the Apollo program being a mission to discover what landed there. There is even an appearance by Buzz Aldrin portraying himself to confirm what it was that he found up there all those years ago [and driving the conspiracy nuts - those that believe the moon landing was real at least - demented for decades to come]. The movie does take a slightly tedious turn during the first hour where we are re-introduced to Sam whose life has taken a turn for the worse economically and he's unemployed [Bay's commentary on the dire job crisis?] but he's still scored high in the romance department [if you're into totally brain-dead bimbos] and his lighthearted adventures soon turn deadly.

The McGuffin of the piece is not the All-Spark or the Matrix of Leadership this time but another significant piece of Transformers technology plucked from over 25 years of Transformers lore - The Space Bridge, which would allow the Decepticons to unleash their overwhelming army directly from Cybertron to the Earth in seconds. The bridge can only be controlled however by Sentinel Prime [Leonard Nimoy] the former leader of the Autobots who has been discovered and brought back to life, so thankfully the Space Bridge technology is in good hands.

The weak-bladdered brigade who whine at the likes of Gladiator and The Dark Knight will no doubt do the same at Dark Of The Moon for being too long. They don't understand that when something of this quality is produced, you may need more time to present it adequately. That said, a 15 minute shaving off Sam's job hunting sequence probably wouldn't have been too lamented if it went missing [so long as it didn't remove John Malkovich's crazy cameo].


Final Verdict: The finale to Bay and LaBeouf's run in the series is an explosive climax to one of the most successful trilogies of all time. Dark of the Moon corrects the flaws of it's predecessor but because of it's own issues, it can't touch the original, the entirely flawless progenitor that is Transformers - which was the best movie of it's decade. Takings of over $1Bn dollars and becoming currently the 5th highest grossing film of all time in only six weeks have secured the future of this franchise for another outing, and it will be interesting to see who will take the tale of the cinematic Robots in Disguise to their next level.

Colonel Creedon Verdict: *****

Read my original Transformers review [Exempt] from July 07 and my Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen review [*****] from July 2009.

PRIME GETS HIS TRAILER

Finally all is well in the world :)

Source: AICN

Transformers 3 aims to correct issues with Revenge of the Fallen

There are many directors and producers out there who are satisfied with simply making money. One would assume there was no problem with a movie that has made $836m worldwide putting it behind only Avatar, but "awesome" Michael Bay acknowledges the faults with last year's Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen and is prepared to correct them.

It appears that both Bay and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura weren't 100% happy with the way the sequel to the greatest movie of the decade turned out despite it's outstanding financial success and are promising something a bit more of what made the original so great by correcting the errors in judgement of the sequel.

While were are promised that there will be less "dorky comedy" in Transformers 3, we will be given a superior villain - provided that is that Bay takes his inspiration from the comic books as opposed to the animated series. It has been revealed that Shockwave, the powerful Cyclopian Decepticon, second in power only to Megatron will be the new antagonist. I'm certainly on board with that, I always liked that character. He had a completely different leadership style to old Meg and his plans seemed to be a bit more focused than others. He was always a purveyor of absolutely pure logic, to a point where he once rescinded command of the Decepticons to Megatron because "it was the most logical thing to do."

Shockwave was originally going to be in the original Transformers movie but his role eventually evolved into the Decepticon Blackout, which was a good call. The character was given a movie-style treatment by the creators of the Transformers video games, but I'd think it unlikely that that design will be used in the movie itself considering he seems to resemble his G1 appearence far too much in comparison to most other characters. It would be a nice touch to give him only one eye though.

Another change made that might only upset you if you prefer brunettes to blonds as Whopper Award Nominee Megan Fox has been replaced by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley of Britishland.

As for plot points, all we know is that it delves into the space race between the U.S.S.R. and the USA, suggesting there was a hidden Transformers role in it all that remains one of the planet's most dangerous secrets.

Source: USA Today

The 82nd Oscars

The 82nd Oscar’s were held during my absence. As last year's ceremony was exceptional I took it upon my self to watch it again this year. I didn’t see the recording of the event until my return, so now I can share my thoughts.

Firstly, I thought Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin's hosting was pretty good - but not as good as Hugh Jackman's last year. Strangely they didn't do their own opening number, this was instead provided by Neil Patrick Harris, which while adequate, also fell short of Jackman's effort last year. Martin and Baldwin's hand offs and jibes against each other were funny but it seemed a lot more subtle and controlled than usual, something was lacking...

There were a couple of good presentation moments, Tina Fey reprising her "role" from last year, but now partnered with the equally amusing Robert Downey Jr. to read paragraphs from and present the Oscar for screenwriting. However even their performance was overshadowed by Ben Stiller's appearance which delivered whoops of laughter from the audience. Last year you'll recall his "Joaquin Phoenix" bit, but this year he presented himself in full make-up as a Na'vi. When the initial laughter had died down, he delivered a paragraph in the Na'vi language and was generally Ben Stiller shaming himself until he presented those responsible for the Make-Up effects on Star Trek with their well deserved award. Watch the full 4.5 min bit on Youtube.

As for the awards themselves; it was very nice to see Jeff Bridges to finally get an Oscar after 4 previous nominations [but was he a little drunk, stoned or both? See his speech about 8:16 into this from Youtube]. It was also nice to see Sandra Bullock get her first Oscar especially considering her fellow nominees included Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep.

I mentioned Christopher Waltz' stellar performance in my Inglorious Basterds review. While nominated for some other awards – only Waltz really deserved an Oscar for that movie and thankfully the Academy ultimately recognised that..

Micheal Giacchino, a popular video game music composer who turned to TV and later - the silver screen was up against some intense competition from both Hans Zimmer and James Horner this year but the Star Trek movie and Lost TV show composer earned his first Oscar [following a recent BAFTA win] for his enchanting score to the animated movie Up.

The big news of the evening was of course the battle between The Hurt Locker and Avatar. I gave both movies 5 stars but clearly the Academy felt that Kathryn Bigelow's numerous military-related mistakes which I pointed out to them in Hurt Locker were less than the grave error James Cameron made by not including a script with Avatar, and let’s be honest here: they’re right.

In the end, The Hurt Locker took 6 Oscars for it's Screenplay, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Editing, Director and of course the most coveted Best Picture award. Avatar's 3 awards were mainly technical for Cinematography, Art Direction and Visual Effects which were all deserved as Avatar is indeed the greatest cinematic technology demo of all time.

It's still a shock to me however that the Academy choose to recognise Kathryn Bigalow, the first woman to win Best Director over Tarantino, Up's Reitman, "King" Cameron himself and also for only the second time in history, an African American - Lee Daniels. I was full sure that Cameron had it in the bag, but I'm thrilled that Bigalow won it for a brutal war-movie and not some "wishy-washy" tear-jerker, historical epic, true story or costume drama.

Overall I was shocked in a way by the trouncing that The Hurt Locker gave Avatar – don’t get me wrong - I agree with the awards and Hurt Locker was clearly deserving of all it got but I didn’t expect the Academy to actually deliver the respect to the movie it clearly deserved. It was refreshing to see people from so many movies actually worthy of Oscars than those normally nominated, namely: The Hurt Locker, Avatar, District 9, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes and Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. Long may this trend of recognising "real" movies continue.

I think I've seen everything worthy of my own accolades from 2009 myself now so I'll soon deliver the 5th Whopper Awards and a special The Whoppers Of The Decade soon enough.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen - The #1 Movie on the Planet!

As no one watching this movie should be jumping into it without seeing the original then there are only two camps – one that loved the original, as I did and the other side that thought it was trash. If you’re a member of the latter then you’ll find this equally shit and you should just wait until I review Public Enemies. If however you’re one of the former, then I think you’re in for a real treat. This is a fantastic voyage through the insane mind of a wholly unrestricted, unleashed Michael Bay and you’ll be swept into more exciting chases, battle scenes, robotic transformations, Megan Fox pouting and running in slow motion, military jargon and spectacular explosions. As God once said, [when creating Skywalker Sound] that "sound is 50% of the cinema experience" and this is really an aural assault like no other – even against Bay’s own Armageddon!

Now I won’t pretend the movie is without problems, the opening half hour is far too long and contained unnecessary sequences that had no business at all being there. For example: Sam’s mother accidentally eats a hash brownie resulting in ridiculous American Pie style “hilarity”. Bay is undoubtedly the greatest action movie genius director of the modern age, but he must forever stay away from the realm of teen-comedy. I also thought the Leo Spitz character was completely redundant and expanded an already bursting cast without reason. However, these issues and the multitude of obvious continuity errors are not significant enough to spoil the magic.

Despite being a ridiculously hokey plot it’s technically superior to the original in several ways, the character models themselves are more defined and more recognisable against the backgrounds of this movie. Transformations are upgraded for the better and the voice actors seem somewhat more believable than they originally did. And is it my imagination or is Megan Fox even hotter this time round?

Final Verdict: This is one movie that just doesn’t require a lenghty review. It’s not one of these movies that taxes your brain, or where the merits of it explosions can be debated for hours. It’s simply a joy to watch and meets all the criteria for a loud and action packed summer blockbuster.

Colonel Creedon Rating: *****

Official Site / IMDB / Wikipedia

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen - Full Trailer

SUPERBOWL TRAILERS

I love the Superbowl. I may never have watched a football game in my life, but I still love the Superbowl. Why? Because the networks pull out all the stops and put their best shows and especially we see new TV-Spots for upcoming movies like these:

Star Trek


G.I.Joe: The Rise Of Cobra


Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen


Fast & Furious


Land Of The Lost

Sometimes these trailers are removed, do a search on YouTube to find mirrors.

Isaac Hayes & Bernie Mac: Double Obituary

The world lost two talented bruthas' this weekend in the form of hilarious comedian Bernie Mac and the soul legend Isaac Hayes.

Bernie Mac, born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough in Chicago, Illinois was a stand-up comedian before making many notable acting appearances in both Television and the silver screen. Most notable among them were roles in Ocean's 11, 12 & 13 and the multi award-winning The Bernie Mac Show.

Bernie Mac is forever immortalised in the greatest movie of the decade - Transformers where he lends his comedic genius to Micheal Bay as Bobby Bolivia the car salesman that sold Bumblebee to Sam.

Mac went into hospital in Aug 1st with pneumonia. Unfortunately he died as a result of complications on Aug 9th. He was 50.

Isaac Hayes, born Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. in Covington, Tennessee was a soul and funk singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, arranger, composer, and actor.

His notable acting appearances include, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Stargate SG-1 but he'll be most remembered in this field for giving life to the soul-singing school cafeteria worker Chef on the long running adult animated series South Park.

Among Hayes' best known musical works are Soul Man (1967) which he wrote with David Porter for the duo Sam & Dave. In early 1971, he composed music for the soundtrack for Shaft for which he won an Academy Award for the Theme from Shaft, and was also nominated for Best Original Dramatic Score. Many years later in 1999 his association with South Park generated a hit song Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You), which reached number-one on both the UK and the Irish singles chart.

Sadly in 1995, Hayes embraced Scientology and started to go a bit nuts. He appeared in nut-job Scientology films and created some Scientology music over the years.

On March 20, 2006, Roger Friedman of Fox News reported that Hayes had suffered a stroke in January. Hayes' spokeswoman Amy Harnell denied that Hayes had had a stroke, but on October 26, 2006 Hayes himself confirmed that he did, (this is to be used to confirm universally that everything on Fox News is actually the truth, even if denied).

On August 10th Hayes' wife found him on the floor near a treadmill at his home in Memphis, Tennessee. The cause of death was not immediately known. He was 65.

In what will be seen as one of the greatest coincidences of the 21st century: Both Bernie Mac AND Isaac Hayes will appear with Samuel L. Jackson in the new film Soul Men, due out in November. Spooky!

2IGTV Episode 54

In this, the first episode of 2008 we open with a high tech discussion about Apple, The Hi-Def format war and DRM.

We update you on the WGA strike, Wesley Snipes in court, South Korean pirates, Cruise and Scientology, the years upcoming movies and the US Presidential Election.

We also have exciting news on Star Trek and The A-Team and update you on some happenings in the 2IGTV forums.

All this and much more here.

2IGTV Episode 52

In our first Mega-Monthly episode we've got so much stuff that we'll never fit it all into this post... ...but we'll try:

Bad news for Brett Ratner fans, good news for sane people. God is assembling Star Wars writers to bring his religion to Television. AT&T attempt daylight robbery. Tara Reid ain't stupid like Hilton and Lohan. A release date is set for Wolverine but Bubba Nosferatu falls off our radar. Turok to returns and both the Green Lantern and Max Payne are coming to Hollywood. Stallone to butcher a sacred franchise and more news on the WGA strike and it's bleak future.

All this and much more, PLUS an announcement you've all been waiting for: we've given into your incessant demands.

Grab it here.

2IGTV Episode 50!!!

Prepare yourself for the 2IGTV 50th Episode Extravaganza!!! Well actually it's pretty much a normal episide, just with a milestone number, nothing to get more excited about than normal.

In addition to our mailbag, we talk about Heath Ledger, James Spader, Rose McGowan, Mike Bay and even Chris Crocker. On TV we mention Family Guy's tribute to Star Wars and some news for Battlestar Galactica fans. In Movies we have The Dark Knight, Thor, Iron Man, Magneto and Southland Tales.

To celebrate our 50th Episode and the release of John Woo's Stranglehold game - you have a chance of winning The Colonel's very own copy of Woo's magnum opus: "Hard Boiled" (Region Free in Chineese with English Subs).

What the fuck are you waiting for? Grab it now!

2IGTV Episode 49

Once we get through the mailbag we have news on Dr.Who, Battlestar Galactica and Bionic Woman. We reveal details of the Transfomers DVDs and discuss NBCs migration from Apple to Amazon. We'll have a Kane and Lynch movie sooner than expected as well as Punisher: War Zone. We have news on Thor, the Justice League and a sequel to one of the greatest Disney adventures of all time.

It (and much more) is all here.

2IGTV Episode 46

Comic-Con is the big event we cover tonight, with all it's exciting news on the Iron Man movie, Star Trek XI, Flash Gordon, DC Movies and more! Also, find out what we think of Transformers and The Simpsons Movie. We let you know who the new Punisher is and inform you about new movies Traitor and John Hancock. And yes, even though we obviously have much more than that lot, we do still have time to cover E3 and dip into our mail-bag!

Download it here.

Transformers: The Greatest Movie of the Decade

I had no idea it was going to be this good. Seriously. I mean what did we have? Giant robots that looked vaguely like some plastic toys I had from about '84 to '88 that had a tie-in comic book and cartoon series? Alright- so there was some nostalgic value there much like the upcoming G.I.Joe, I bit. Then Mike Bay comes along, fair enough he's already cemented himself as one of the greatest motion picture directors of of the past 20 years, if not all time. But even I was sceptical, even of the wondrous talent of Bay that he could pull this off. The Island did not achieve the status of The Rock, Armageddon or Con Air and Bad Boys 2 was pale in comparison to it's predecessor so I'll admit that I was beginning to think that Mr. Bay may have started to loose it.

Never in my entire life have I been so wrong.

I said it in the title: Transformers is the Greatest Movie of the Decade, I offer Spider-Man, Mission: Impossible 2, 300, Underworld, Gladiator and The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King as examples of previous movies which I would assume would be contenders for that title (there are others but not many) certainly there are not as many between 2000 and 2007 as there were between 1990 and 1997, but for now Transformers is king.

Michael Bay returns to Armageddon form (he even ingeniously includes a character line "This is better than Armageddon" as the Autobots land on earth). There is more military hardware on show here than Pearl Harbor, Bay runs the camera almost sexually over aircraft, artillery and modern weapons that gave me an instant hard-on. His obligatory silhouetted Black helicopters in slow-motion and his almost homo-erotic framing of a group of military-types walking towards the camera in slo-mo as well made their welcome return. I think there was more military tech-geek-talk in this movie than any of his previous projects a credit to the advisers I posted about earlier.

The Comic-Book had Buster, and the TV show had Spike so when Shia LeBeouf was cast I wasn't as concerned as others as it was plainly obvious that the producers were following the adventure of young Sam Witwiky which was more in keeping with the source material than just following the military response to the Transformers, not that we had a shortage of that however. LeBeouf had a good part in Constantine and after seeing how good he was in Transformers, I have no problem with his appearance in Indy 4.

Josh Duhamel (Danny in Las Vegas) who reminds me as a sort of cross between Johnny Knoxville and Timothy Olyphant is Captain Lennox, our human "Hero" character who is pivotal in the human's fight against that which they thought impossible. Other juicy parts are dished out to John Voight, Kevin Dunn, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson and even the excellent Glenn (Aaron Pierce in 24) Morshower gets to play a Marine Colonel :) However even though the movie has all these well known names/faces, I'm compelled by some strange force to post only this picture of the aptly named Megan Fox.

But enough about the "fleshlings", what about the giant, transformin' fuckin' robots???! Well if you remember that advertisement for... was it a Citroen?- who gives a shit? You know the one I'm on about with the transforming car. Well the transformations in this film are pretty much like that, but in a larger scale and much faster but with guns and weapons. They don't hold hand-weapons like they did in other incarnations, now the weapons are built in and like pop out of their arms or their arms transform into weapons which makes a lot of sense. Voice acting was top notch with the much hyped appearence of both Peter Cullen - the original voice for Optimus Prime and Hugo Weaving himself as the evil Megatron. Explaining anything else would lessen the impact of what you will see on screen but safe to say that these guys ain't those toys you had as kids. In many ways they're better.

The script was a gem, the perfect pace, balance of humour, action and drama, a credit to writers Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman, their faithfulness to the "essence" of Transformers while updating it for the 21st century has filled me with hope for their next effort - Star Trek. Steve The Island Jablonsky, through his magnificent music makes no secret that he's one of Hans Zimmer's trained composers and it's as if he channelled the Prince of Film Music himself to create a rich, multi-textured musical adventure of his own behind the action, yet accompanying it perfectly. The pyrotechnics on show here are pretty much what you'd expect from the director of The Rock, Armageddon, The Island, Bad Boys, Pearl Harbor etc. and it surprises most folk that Bay's budget was only $147m compared with $210m for the woeful X-Men: The Last Stand or even an insane $258m for the piece of shit Spider-Man 3, considering the flawless quality of and the sheer amount of CGI!! It just goes to show what you can do without an A-list actor inflating the budget beyond insanity.

The only possible problem I've scraped from the bottom of the barrel from this movie is that Voight as SECDEF Keller tries to use a mobile in the National Military Command Center. I can guarantee that mobiles are prohibited (even to the likes of me and even the SECDEF) inside such a facility. That aside, the analyst smuggling a memory card out of the NMCC was a bit far-fetched but I'll forgive it as a) it advanced the plot and b) The theft was discovered and an appropriate response was issued.

Finally, if you see only one movie this decade - I order you to go now and witness a true masterwork of motion picture presentation, and join Michael Bay on a virtual roller coaster ride the like of which you have never experienced.

Colonel Creedon Rating: STARS ARE MEANINGLESS IF A MOVIE REACHES THIS LEVEL!

Special Note: Star Wars Revenge of the Sith is deliberatly omitted from the lists that appear here as it's not a film, it's a religion.

New Transformers UK Comic

Now this is surprising. The original Transformers UK couldn't afford the artists and writers to produce new material each week a couple of years before the Marvel title finished and now Titan is bringing out a new book with the former creative team?

On the 18th of January 1992 the final issue (#332) of Marvel UK's greatest comic-book success The Transformers was published. I had collected each issue from #77 (September '86) onwards and was thrilled by the adventures of the "Robots in Disguise" as I played out the comic book adventures with my own Transformers in plastic form each week. What is facinating about the weekly UK version of the Transformers comic book is that it featured reprints of the monthly US book with work from the best of British comic book talent at the time in the form of artists Ron Smith, Staz, Andy Wildman and the greatest of them all Geoff Senior as well as writer extraordinaire Simon Furman. To this day American comic-book collectors pay enormous sums of money for Transformers UK books citing their superiority over their own books - I sold my own collection on lots to them a few years ago for almost a grand. In the Transformers hayday the comic book was the best on the market. However as with all things, times change and the market changed with it. Furman and the artists began to create their work for the US book in the late 80's and the UK book began reprinting the US book which was now being created by the UK team so when the US book ceased publication in '91 it was not long before the material for the US book dried up too.

With the resurgence of popular culture in opening years of the new millennium, both deceased Marvel titles Transformers and G.I.Joe were purchased by independent US publishers Dreamweave and Devil's Due respectively. I allowed both of them to gain their market footing before I "investigated" and I discovered that while G.I.Joe had taken a more adult turn in it's direction and respected (and continued) the rich 20-year continuity created by Larry Hama - the Transformers on the other hand, had "rebooted" and was telling a different version of the events of the G1 Transformers without the same respect for previous work. It was at this point while I was happy to rekindle my association with the Joes, I also vowed to sever all ties with Transformers.

I was perplexed as well as astounded that a new Transformers UK book was being published by Titan and I was delighted to see that one of my favourite artists of all: Geoff Senior (some new work pictured right) would return to do what he did best. Then I remembered my vow and wept, for there are some things that are now, much, much too late for....

Sources: AICN, Siebertron.com

New Transformers Trailer

Get the Transformers Trailer Here

Transformer Leaders Unveiled

While the characters look awesome, I wonder what the actual toys themselves will look like?

In my time in college, I was repeatedly chastised or even failed for producing potentially lethal designs of everyday objects. This was based on my philosophy of being able to defend your home with any object without relying on the weight of a blunt object to kill or maim an intruder.

If these character designs are reproduced faithfully in toy form, I'll buy them and bring them up to Carlow Institute of Technology to show my former professors screaming "See? See? This is what I was trying to do!!!"

Transformers Character Lineup

The lineup of Transformer characters is:
Autobots: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Jazz, Rachet and Ironhide
Decepticons: Megatron, Starscream, Brawl, Barricade, Bonecrusher, Scorponok, Frenzy and Blackout.

Character descriptions:
- Prime "every society has that noble king. That King Arthur."
- Bumblebee (left) is the "same underdog, same G1 character we know and love." and that despite being a Chevrolet Camaro "The clothes don't make the man." Be aware that when Hasbro approached BMW to make a new Bumblebee toy they declined as they did not want to be associated with war toys. Clowns: they lost out in the greatest advertising ever.
- Jazz's attitude is "can't do something with style it's not worth doing at all."
- Rachet continues to be the medic of the group but will not match his Gen-One alt mode.
- Ironhide remains the gutsy muscle of the group and make "any Transformer bust an O-ring just with his stare."
- Megatron will be explored beyond just the usual evil, destroy this and that mentality.
- Starscream will continue to try "to best Megatron."
- Brawl is an "extremely pissed off Decepticon" and is based on other iterations of the Transformers which may continue in sequels.
- Bonecrusher is basically Megatron's willing slave (and apparently the closest thing to a Constructicon)
- Barricade is the Saleen Mustang police car seen in some leaked photos and who likes to hunt down the Autobots.
- Scorponok is closest to the Beast Wars iteration with a "little bit of flavors from the other things."
- Frenzy is the replacement Soundwave. The alt mode will be a stereo.
- Blackout is the EMP guy. Has the weapons to knock out most electronic items, which of course is bad news for the military and the Autobots.

Source: Transformersmovie.com, Yahoo

Optimus Prime Transformers Movie Picture!

This is the picture that Mike Bay and Paramount don't want you to see (less the big red X I stuck on there obviously) of Optimus Prime in Truck mode. I'm not completely surprised that they didn't go with a Cabover semi because they aren't that common today, but I didn't see the flame type of deco coming. It doesn't say Prime to me, but it does have potential. I'm reserving judgement until we see robot mode pics.

It's obviously real, since they had AICN remove it, but it's still up in a few places on the net for all to see. I'd like to link them for you but if I do then those sites pictures will be taken down too if not their whole websites like heavy-handed Paramount have done recently.

In related news I do have this from Youtube! It has Steven Speilberg talking about Transformers and Mike Bay and we see a lot of grainy footage.